Making Mind Matter More

The last paragraph from the paper:

Jerry A. Fodor, Making Mind Matter More
Philosophical Topics, Vol. 17, No. 1, Philosophy of Mind, 1989, pp. 59-79
http://www.jstor.org/stable/43154039

“So, then, perhaps there’s a route to physicalism from stuff about mental causation that doesn’t require the claim that ceteris paribus laws can’t ground mental cases. If so, then my story gives us both physicalism and a reasonable account of the causal responsibility of the mental; whereas Davidson’s story gives us at most the former. But if we can’t get both the causal responsibility of the mental and an argument for physicalism, then it seems to me that we ought to give up the argument for physicalism. I’m not really convinced that it matters very much whether the mental is physical; still less that it matters very much whether we can prove that it is. Whereas, if it isn’t literally true that my wanting is causally responsible for my reaching, and my itching is causally responsible for my scratching, and my believing is causally responsible for my saying. . . . if none of that is literally true, then practically everything I believe about anything is false and it’s the end of the world.”


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