Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a Little Bit More Empathy
In this essay, I will suggest ways of improving on Davidson’s conception of the explanatory autonomy of folk psychological explanations. For that purpose, I will appeal to insights from the recent theory of mind debate emphasizing the centrality of various forms of empathy for our understanding of a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MULPress
2019-03-01
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| Series: | Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy |
| Online Access: | https://jhaponline.org/jhap/article/view/3486 |
| _version_ | 1818645516961972224 |
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| author | Karsten R. Stueber |
| author_facet | Karsten R. Stueber |
| author_sort | Karsten R. Stueber |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this essay, I will suggest ways of improving on Davidson’s conception of the explanatory autonomy of folk psychological explanations. For that purpose, I will appeal to insights from the recent theory of mind debate emphasizing the centrality of various forms of empathy for our understanding of another person’s mindedness. While I will argue that we need to abandon Davidson’s position of anomalous monism, I will also show that my account is fully compatible with Davidson’s non-reductive and interpretationist account of meaning and mental content. Indeed, my account does more justice to the empathic capacities underlying our interpretive capacities, which Davidson himself has to acknowledge in thinking about the constitutive features of thought and meaning. More specifically, I will propose a new way of philosophically safeguarding the causal-explanatory autonomy of our ordinary action explanations by showing how our empathic capacities are involved in epistemically delineating the domain of rational agency. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T00:32:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-fb863d1194b2456d99849f3ae86f8b85 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2159-0303 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T00:32:00Z |
| publishDate | 2019-03-01 |
| publisher | MULPress |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy |
| spelling | doaj.art-fb863d1194b2456d99849f3ae86f8b852022-12-21T22:10:16ZengMULPressJournal for the History of Analytical Philosophy2159-03032019-03-017210.15173/jhap.v7i2.3486Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a Little Bit More EmpathyKarsten R. Stueber0College of the Holy CrossIn this essay, I will suggest ways of improving on Davidson’s conception of the explanatory autonomy of folk psychological explanations. For that purpose, I will appeal to insights from the recent theory of mind debate emphasizing the centrality of various forms of empathy for our understanding of another person’s mindedness. While I will argue that we need to abandon Davidson’s position of anomalous monism, I will also show that my account is fully compatible with Davidson’s non-reductive and interpretationist account of meaning and mental content. Indeed, my account does more justice to the empathic capacities underlying our interpretive capacities, which Davidson himself has to acknowledge in thinking about the constitutive features of thought and meaning. More specifically, I will propose a new way of philosophically safeguarding the causal-explanatory autonomy of our ordinary action explanations by showing how our empathic capacities are involved in epistemically delineating the domain of rational agency.https://jhaponline.org/jhap/article/view/3486 |
| spellingShingle | Karsten R. Stueber Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a Little Bit More Empathy Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy |
| title | Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a Little Bit More Empathy |
| title_full | Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a Little Bit More Empathy |
| title_fullStr | Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a Little Bit More Empathy |
| title_full_unstemmed | Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a Little Bit More Empathy |
| title_short | Davidson, Reasons, and Causes: A Plea for a Little Bit More Empathy |
| title_sort | davidson reasons and causes a plea for a little bit more empathy |
| url | https://jhaponline.org/jhap/article/view/3486 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT karstenrstueber davidsonreasonsandcausesapleaforalittlebitmoreempathy |