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Full Idea
If there are no strict psychophysical laws, this rules out reductionism, either by definition of mental predicates in physical terms, or by way of bridging laws.
Clarification
'Reductionism' is the full explanation of the mental in physical terms. An 'anomaly' is a misfit in the current scheme
Gist of Idea
If the mind is an anomaly, this makes reduction of the mental to the physical impossible
Source
Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231)
Book Ref
'A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind', ed/tr. Guttenplan,Samuel [Blackwell 1995], p.231
A Reaction
But it is by no means clear that there are no psycho-physical laws. How could this be known a priori?
| 3529 | Reduction is impossible because mind is holistic and brain isn't [Davidson, by Maslin] |
| 3964 | If the mind is an anomaly, this makes reduction of the mental to the physical impossible [Davidson] |
| 5798 | Consciousness has a first-person ontology, so it cannot be reduced without omitting something [Searle] |
| 2314 | Maybe intentionality is reducible, but qualia aren't [Kim] |
| 3427 | Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical [Kim] |
| 3439 | Reductionism gets stuck with qualia [Kim] |
| 4091 | The problems of misrepresentation and error have dogged physicalist reductions of intentionality [Crane] |
| 4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
| 4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
| 2533 | Rule-following can't be reduced to the physical [Sturgeon] |