Anomalism and Supervenience: A Critical Survey

Abstract

The thesis that mental properties are dependent, or supervenient, on physical properties, but this dependence is not lawlike, has been influential in contemporary philosophy of mind. It is put forward explicitly in Donald Davidson's seminal ‘Mental Events.’ On the one hand, Davidson claims that the mental is anomalous, that ‘there are no strict deterministic laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted and explained’ (1970, 208), and, in particular, that there are no strict psychophysical laws. On the other hand, he insists that the mental supervenes on the physical; that ‘mental characteristics are in some sense dependent, or supervenient, on physical characteristics’ (1970, 214).