Anomalous Monism and Epiphenomenalism

Abstract: I argue that, on plausible assumptions, anomalous entails monism epiphenomenalism of the mental. The plausible assumptions are (1) events are particulars; (2) causal relations are extensional; (3) mental properties are epiphrastic. A principle defender of anomalous monism, Donald Davidson, acknowledges that anomalous monism is committed to (1) and (2). I argue that it is committed to (3) as well. Given (1), (2), and (3), epiphenomenalism of the mental falls out immediately. Three attempts to salvage anomalous monism from epiphenomenalism of the mental are examined and rejected. I conclude with reflections on the status of non-reductive physicalism.     

Stereokinetic Anomalous Contours: Demonstrations

Collinearity or correspondence between the contours of the inducing figure to allow `contour continuation' or `figure completion' were, according to G. Kanizsa, the necessary conditions for producing anomalous surfaces or contours. Since Kanizsa's early work various hypotheses have been advanced to explain the phenomenon, but very few examples of anomalous contours that do not satisfy the above conditions have been reported. When two small white discs (1 cm in diameter) are set on a larger black disc in slow rotation, the two discs, after some observation time, will appear as the extremities of a rigid cylinder displaced in depth. The surface of the cylinder, under dim illumination, appears as a whitish transparent surface. However, when the two discs are substituted by a circle and a semicircle of the same size, a clear anomalous contour appears to form the cylinder, even under clear light conditions and when the colours are reversed; i.e., black circles on white disc. The anomalous contours are not apparent when the configuration is stationary. I will demonstrate how the anomalous contours of a stereokinetic cylinder can be obtained even without the “interruption” of the lines in the semicircle. The relationship between the anomalous contours of the stereokinetic cylinder and the vitreous transparency of the surface of the cylinder formed by the two small discs above mentioned, will be discussed as well as their relation to the general theories of anomalous surfaces.     

A Phenomenological Reading of Anomalous Monism

The essay discusses Donald Davidson’s concept of anomalous monism in the framework of Husserlian phenomenology. It develops in four stages. Section 1 is devoted to a critical presentation of the argument for anomalous monism. Section 2 succinctly examines those Husserlian notions that best provide the ground for a discussion parallel to Davidson’s. In Sect. 3, the aporetic status of “mental causation” is analyzed by providing a genetic-phenomenological account of efficient causation. Section 4 draws some general conclusions concerning the kind of efficaciousness that must be attributed to consciousness and discusses the sense in which anomalous monism can be defended in a phenomenological framework, but not in a naturalistic one.     

Anomalous Monism: Oscillating between Dogmas

Davidson’s anomalous monism, his argument for the identity between mental and physical event tokens, has been frequently attacked, usually demanding a higher degree of physicalist commitment. My objection runs in the opposite direction: the identities inferred by Davidson from mental causation, the nomological character of causality and the anomaly of the mental are philosophically problematic and, more dramatically, incompatible with his famous argument against the third dogma of empiricism, the separation of content from conceptual scheme. Given the anomaly of the mental and the absence of psychophysical laws, there are no conceptual resources to relate mental and physical predicates. We fall in the third dogma if we claim that the very same token event is mental and physical. One of the premises must be rejected: I will claim that we do not need a law to subsume cause and effect to be entitled to speak of causation. Davidson has never offered an argument to back this premise. Against such a dogma I will sketch some ideas pointing towards a different conception of causality, singularist and undetachable from explanatory practices.     

Rationality and the Argument for Anomalous Monism

Philosophical Studies -     

Anomalous orientation effects in the Bourdon illusion

All current explanations of the Bourdon illusion imply that the illusion persists under mirror imaging over the vertical or horizontal axes. We tested this hypothesis in three experiments. For orientations of the standard Bourdon figure of about 135°, the illusion shows a dip, which is unexplainable in terms of current theories.     

Anomalous ductile-brittle fracture behaviour in fcc crystals

The fracture behaviour of fcc crystals has been investigated by numerically simulating the dynamical failure of a three-dimensional notched crystal using molecular dynamics, simple interatomic potentials for a rare-gas solid and system sizes of about ten million atoms. We find that the solid fails by brittle cleavage for cracking on a {110} face growing in a [110]direction and by ductile plasticity for cracking on a {111} face growing in a [110]direction. Comparison of equilibrium surface energies on the crack face and Schmid factors on the primary slip systems indicates that the classical theories of fracture give predictions in contradiction with the simulation results. A hyperelasticity model is proposed to explain this discrepancy. This anomalous fracture behaviour of fcc crystals has a profound implication on general modelling of dynamic failure of solids.     

Anomalous control: when 'free-will' is not conscious

The conscious feeling of exercising 'free-will' is fundamental to our sense of self. However, in some psychopathological conditions actions may be experienced as involuntary or unwilled. We have used suggestion in hypnosis to create the experience of involuntariness (anomalous control) in normal participants. We compared a voluntary finger movement, a passive movement and a voluntary movement suggested by hypnosis to be 'involuntary.' Hypnosis itself had no effect on the subjective experience of voluntariness associated with willed movements and passive movements or on time estimations of their occurrence. However, subjective time estimates of a hypnotically-suggested, 'involuntary' finger movement were more similar to those for passive movements than for voluntary movements. The experience of anomalous control is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the normal conscious experience of a similar act produced intentionally. The experience of anomalous control may be produced either by pathology, or, in our case, by suggestion.     

Anomalous agglomeration characteristics observed in iron oxide nanoclusters

Iron oxide nanoclusters, exhibiting unusual and interesting particle characteristics on thermal treatment, have been synthesized and studied. In all samples, a sharp size distribution has been obtained. Initially, the clusters exhibit agglomerated fractal morphology with low compactness but these disintegrate into smaller fragments and then grow in size as a function of the holding time of thermal treatment. The structure becomes more compact at higher holding times. The monodispersed agglomerates are basically clusters consisting of a large number of smaller grains of a few nanometres in size. The fractions of interfacial and bulk components in all samples have been estimated.     

The Anomalous Wellbeing of Disabled People: A Response

Disabled people frequently find themselves in situations where their quality of life and wellbeing is being measured or judged by others, whether in decisions about health care provision or assessments for social supports. Recent debates about wellbeing and how it might be assessed (through subjective and/or objective measures) have prompted a renewed focus on disabled people’s wellbeing because of its seemingly ‘anomalous’ nature; that is, whilst to external (objective) observers the wellbeing of disabled people appears poor, based on subjective assessments, people with disabilities report a good quality of life. In this paper, I examine an article by the philosopher Dan Moller in which he seeks to explain this ‘disability paradox’. Despite agreeing with his analysis that there is more to what people value than happiness, his explanation reflects some of the difficulties presented in philosophical accounts which seek to understand the lives of disabled people: this includes an analysis which fails to problematise definitions of wellbeing and who has the ‘voice’ to do the defining; which negates the multiple identities and subject positions that disabled people occupy; and which lacks recognition of the social contexts which mediate disabled people’s lives. I suggest that there is a need to incorporate disabled people’s voices into research which deepens our empirical knowledge about the relationship between impairment and wellbeing, including the social circumstances that shape disabled people’s agency.     

Explanation of Two Anomalous Results in Statistical Mediation Analysis

Previous studies of different methods of testing mediation models have consistently found two anomalous results. The first result is elevated Type I error rates for the bias-corrected and accelerated bias-corrected bootstrap tests not found in nonresampling tests or in resampling tests that did not include a bias correction. This is of special concern as the bias-corrected bootstrap is often recommended and used due to its higher statistical power compared with other tests. The second result is statistical power reaching an asymptote far below 1.0 and in some conditions even declining slightly as the size of the relationship between X and M, a, increased. Two computer simulations were conducted to examine these findings in greater detail. Results from the first simulation found that the increased Type I error rates for the bias-corrected and accelerated bias-corrected bootstrap are a function of an interaction between the size of the individual paths making up the mediated effect and the sample size, such that elevated Type I error rates occur when the sample size is small and the effect size of the nonzero path is medium or larger. Results from the second simulation found that stagnation and decreases in statistical power as a function of the effect size of the a path occurred primarily when the path between M and Y, b, was small. Two empirical mediation examples are provided using data from a steroid prevention and health promotion program aimed at high school football players (Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids; Goldberg et al., 1996), one to illustrate a possible Type I error for the bias-corrected bootstrap test and a second to illustrate a loss in power related to the size of a. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Anomalous Monism in Carnap's Aufbau

The Logical Reconstruction of the World (Aufbau) is oneof the major works of Rudolf Carnap in which he attempts to putan end to some of the traditional disputes in epistemologyby using what he calls `construction theory'. According tothis theory, one or more constructional systems can be designedin which all the scientific and pre-scientific objects are logicallymade out of a limited number of basic elements. Carnap introducessome options for the basis of this system and chooses thedomain of the autopsychological, i.e., the domain of privateelementary experiences, among them and tries to construct all theconcepts out of them. This phenomenalistic reduction sometimes isseen as embracing a Cartesian dualism of mind and body or even amentalistic monism. However, in this paper, I shall try to showthat the traditional dualist-monist debates are among those disputesthat the construction theory aims to get rid of. I will show thatCarnap's position on the mind-body problem is really close towhat Davidson later termed as `Anomalous Monism' and that thisis why Carnap fails to complete his logical construction at a crucial step. Whenever possible, logicalconstructions are to be substituted forinferred entities. Bertrand Russell     

Anomalous moral intuitions in juvenile offenders with psychopathic traits

Since the historical conception of psychopathy, researchers have been interested in understanding moral functioning among psychopathic individuals. The present study investigated the association between psychopathic traits and moral intuitions among incarcerated juvenile offenders (N = 178). Participants were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist:Youth Version (Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003) and the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2011), which defines five core moral foundations: Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity. As expected, psychopathy in juvenile offenders negatively predicted endorsement of all five foundations. This study is the first to demonstrate broad abnormalities in Haidt et al.’s moral foundations in a juvenile sample and can help explain delinquent behavior in juveniles with psychopathic traits. Implications for theories of psychopathy are discussed.     

Anomalous Evidence,Confidence Change,and Theory Change

A novel experimental paradigm that measured theory change and confidence in participants' theories was used in three experiments to test the effects of anomalous evidence. Experiment 1 varied the amount of anomalous evidence to see if “dose size” made incremental changes in confidence toward theory change. Experiment 2 varied whether anomalous evidence was convergent (of multiple types) or replicating (similar finding repeated). Experiment 3 varied whether participants were provided with an alternative theory that explained the anomalous evidence. All experiments showed that participants' confidence changes were commensurate with the amount of anomalous evidence presented, and that larger decreases in confidence predicted theory changes. Convergent evidence and the presentation of an alternative theory led to larger confidence change. Convergent evidence also caused more theory changes. Even when people do not change theories, factors pertinent to the evidence and alternative theories decrease their confidence in their current theory and move them incrementally closer to theory change.     

Daydreams and Anarchy: A Defense of Anomalous Mental Causation

Must mental properties figure in psychological causal laws if they are causally efficacious? And do those psychological causal laws give the essence of mental properties? Contrary to the prevailing consensus, I argue that, on the usual conception of laws that is in play in these debates, there are in fact lawless causally efficacious properties both in and out of the philosophy of mind. I argue that this makes a great difference to the philosophical relevance of empirical psychology. 1 begin by making the case that revolutions and hurricanes are lawless phenomena, before arguing for a similar thesis about creativity, love, courage, dreams, daydreams, and musings. Furthermore, the empirical research on these phenomena suggests that the philosophical issues may be independent of what empirical psychology can tell us.