Reading Davidson's Anomalous Monism

As one of the most profound influential philosophers of the latterhalf of the twentieth century, Donald Herbert Davidson set forth the famousidea of Anomalous Monism in 'Mental Events' in 1970.This idea includesthree basic principles: Principle of causal interaction; Principle of thenomological character of causality and the anomalism of the mental. Becauseof the obscure argument and the original view, this idea aroused fiercecriticism and dispute from many philosophers. In this paper, the author willintroduce the Anomalous Monism around the central two papers: MentalEvents and Thinking Causes. Then it analyses the criticism from Sosa,Honderich etc. who are key figures in this field, especially putting emphasison the dispute between Davidson and Jaegwon Kim. Although there are manydeficiencies in Davidson's Anomalous Monism, the author think it isappropriate in most situation when maintaining the compatibility of therelative independence and holistic supervenience of the mental events and thephysical events. The ideas which have undoubted theory status may havepositive influence on the mind-body problem,the emergence problem and soon.This paper has four parts. Part one tries to clear up the raising,development and argument of the Anomalous Monism. Part two and part threemainly introduce the criticism from relevant philosophers. It also analyses thedispute between Davidson and Jaegwon Kim. In the last part, the author triesto make critical comments on the Anomalous Monism and the debates about it.