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6 - Davidson, non-reductive physicalism and naturalism without physicalism

from Part I - The power of the knowledge argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

Howard Robinson
Affiliation:
Central European University, Budapest
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Summary

Davidson supposedly propounds a form of non-reductive physicalism. In this claim, Davidson – or his interpreters - trade in on two different senses of ‘reduction’. One derives from Ernest Nagel’s work in the philosophy of science and involves type reduction. The other from any theory that tries to give a behaviouristic or functionalist gloss on mental language. This has lead to radical confusion about how non-reductive – and how interesting – Davidson’s contribution has been. McDowell follows Davidson and Sellars in stressing the different ‘logic’ of explanations that appeal to reasons from those that rely on causes. This leads to his doctrine of ‘second nature’. I argue that McDowell’s refusal to explain the relation of this second nature to the first, physical one, pleading the excuse of Wittgensteinian quietism, will not do. Neither will the appeals of what Price and Rorty call ‘subject naturalism’ over ‘object naturalism’ serve to save naturalism from its problems. They claim that if one assumes a naturalist account of the human subject, it does not matter if a strictly physicalist account of the world as a whole cannot be stated. One can just assume that all theories are products of our natural abilities. Price believes that this is because they are merely verbal phenomena, Rorty appeals to something that looks very like a pragmatist positivism. I give reasons for thinking that subject naturalism is not a plausible way out of the problem. Finally I claim that all the theories discussed in this chapter are more or disguised versions of Quineanism.
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From the Knowledge Argument to Mental Substance
Resurrecting the Mind
, pp. 93 - 111
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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