Spring 2001
David Sosa (WAG 221, 1–5284)
E-mail: david_sosa@mail.utexas.edu
Web page: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/sosa/main.html
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday 3–4 p.m.
Syllabus
Anomalous Monism
What is the problem of mental causation, as Davidson sees it? What view does he propose to resolve the problem? How does that view respond to the problem?
• Davidson, D. (1970) “Mental Events,” in L. Foster and J. Swanson (eds.), Experience and Theory (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1970), pp. 79–101. Reprinted in D. Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 207–27.
• Kim, J. (1985) “Psychophysical Laws,” in E. Lepore and B. McLaughlin (eds.), Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), pp. 369–86. Reprinted in J. Kim, Supervenience and Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 194–216.
Against the Adequacy of Anomalous Monism
Does Anomalous Monism give the mental an adequate causal role? Is it really a variety of ‘type epiphenomenalism’?
First
wave
• Sosa, E. (1984) “Mind-Body Interaction and Supervenient Causation,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 9: 271–81.
• Kim, J. (1989) “The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 63: 31–47. Reprinted in J. Kim, Supervenience and Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 265–84.
• Antony, L. (1989) “Anomalous Monism and the Problem of Explanatory Exclusion,” Philosophical Review 98: 153–87.
Davidson
defends
• Davidson, D. (1993) “Thinking Causes,” in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 3–17.
Against
again
• Kim, J. (1993) “Can Supervenience and ‘Non-Strict Laws’ Save Anomalous Monism?” in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 19–26.
• McLaughlin, B. (1993) “On Davidson’s Response to the Charge of Epiphenomenalism,” in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 27–40.
• Sosa, E. (1993) “Davidson’s Thinking Causes,” in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 41–50.
Deflationary Approaches
Can we deflate, or in some other way neutralize, the problem of mental causation? Do, for example, our “explanatory practices” provide a ground from which to ignore the problem?
• Rudder Baker, L. (1993) “Metaphysics and Mental Content,” in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 75–95.
• Burge, T. (1993) “Mind-Body Causation and Explanatory Practice,” in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 97–120.
• Jackson, F. and Pettit, P. (1990) “Program Explanation: A General Perspective,” Analysis 50: 107–17.
• Kim, J. (1995) “Mental Causation: What? Me Worry?” in E. Villanueva (ed.), Philosophical Issues 6: Content (Atascadero, California: Ridgeview Publishing Co., 1995), pp. 123–51.
• Leiter, B. and Miller, A. (1998) “Closet Dualism and Mental Causation,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 28: 161-81.
• Kim, J. (1998) “Chapter 3: Mental Causation: The Backlash and Free Lunches,” in J. Kim, Mind in a Physical World (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), pp. 57–87.
The Problem of Exclusion
Is there “room” for the mental in our physical world? What are the prospects for a “mechanistic” conception of mind?
• Kim, J. (1993) “The Nonreductivist’s Troubles with Mental Causation,” in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds.), Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 189–210. Reprinted in J. Kim, Supervenience and Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 336–357.
• Kim, J. (1998) “Chapter 1: The Mind-Body Problem: Where We Are Now,” “Chapter 2: The Many Problems of Mental Causation,” and “Chapter 4: Reduction and Reductionism: A New Look,” in J. Kim, Mind in a Physical World (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), pp. 1–56 and 89–120.
• Malcolm, N. (1968) “The Conceivability of Mechanism,” Philosophical Review 77: 45–72. Reprinted in G. Watson (ed.), Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 127–49.
Freedom: What is the problem?
How should we conceive the problem of freedom? What assumptions and conceptions (and conceptions of what) are involved?
• Kane, R. (1996) “Introduction” in R. Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 3–17.
• Bok, H. (1998) “Introduction” and “Chapter 1: The Problem” in Freedom and Responsibility (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 3–51.
• van Inwagen, P. (1983) “Chapter 1: The Problems and How We Shall Approach Them,” in P. van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 1–22.
• Strawson, P. (1962) “Freedom and Resentment” Proceedings of the British Academy 68: 1–25. Reprinted in G. Watson (ed.), Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 59–80.
Is Freedom Excluded?
With what are freedom and its absence compatible? Can we be, and must we be, libertarian?
• van Inwagen, P. (1983) “Chapter III: Three Arguments for Incompatibilism,” and “Chapter IV: Three Arguments for Compatibilism,” in P. van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 55–152.
• Chisholm, R. (1961) “Responsibility and Avoidability,” in S. Hook (ed.), Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science (New York: Collier Books, 1961), pp. 157–9.
Some Views
• Chisholm, R. (1964) “Human Freedom and the Self,” The Lindley Lecture (Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas), 1964, pp. 3–15. Reprinted in G. Watson (ed.), Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 24–35.
• Frankfurt, H. (1988) “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” “Three Concepts of Free Action,” and “The Problem of Action,” all reprinted in The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
• Velleman, J. D. (1992) “What Happens When Someone Acts,” Mind 101: 461–81. Reprinted in J. D. Velleman, The Possibility of Practical Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 200), pp. 123–43.
• Davidson, D. (1973) “Freedom to Act,” in . Honderich (ed.), Essays on Freedom of Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973, reprinted with corrections, 1978), pp. 137–156.
• Wiggins, D. (1973) “Towards a Reasonable Libertarianism,”in T. Honderich (ed.), Essays on Freedom of Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973, reprinted with corrections, 1978), pp. 31–61.
• Bok, H. (1998) “Chapter 2: Theoretical and Practical Reason” and “Chapter 3: Freedom” in H. Bok, Freedom and Responsibility (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 52–122.
• Clarke, R. (1993) “Toward a Credible Agent–Causal Account of Free Will,” Noûs 27: 191–203. Reprinted in T. O’Connor (ed.) Agents, Causes, and Events: Essays on Indeterminism and Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 201–15.
• O’Connor, T. (2000) Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).