According to Davidson “Anomalous monism resembles materialism in its claim that all events are physical, but rejects the thesis, usually considered essential to materialism, that mental phenomena can be given purely physical explanations” (Davidson, 1970/2002, p. 119) In other words, only the physical may be described by causal laws, but if a physical event is described as a mental event there is no causal law, and there are no psychophysical laws that connect the mental with the physical. Davidson, may defend a view of identity theory, but he also argues that it is not possible to reduce the mental states to a physical explanation.
In Davidson’s words: Suppose m, a mental event, caused p, a physical event; then, under some description m and p instantiate a strict law. This law can only be physical… But ifm falls under a physical law, it has a physical description; which is to say it is a physical event. An analogous argument works when a physical event causes a mental event. (Davidson, 1970/2002, p. 124) For instance, if I am thirsty, and somebody else is thirsty, the physical state may be different even if the same kind of thirsty is experienced by two individuals and the same thirst in the future may be produced by a different brain state.
So, if this is the case, what laws can be applied? Identity, in the terms of Place or Smart, cannot be asserted, just a functionalist view that identifies mental states with functional states, and those with brain states (as suggested by Lewis and Armstrong) However, beyond that, any physical reduction to a particular functional state with a neuronal state trough laws does not work, hence the explanatory power of non-reductive physicalism. Davidson claims that “Even if omeone knew the entire physical history of the world, and every mental event were identical with a physical, it would not follow that he could predict or explain a single mental event” (Davidson, 1970/2002, p. 124).
So can there be any general laws that explain my mental state that of any other person or, in principle, any creature? It is tempting to generalize about laws [physical laws] that may explain mental phenomena – or that, in Fodor’s words, achieve the reduction of “special sciences” to “physical theories in the long run” (Fodor, 1974/2002, p. 26) – but Davidson suggests that these generalizations may not be possible. Davidson supports a kind of identity theory, on the basis of a physicalist position, but he knows that this identity will be problematic if it is associated with laws or with future empirical research with a reductive methodology.
The laws that we use to describe the physical universe in its macro aspects may not be apply when we try to analyse the mind and how it is physically realized. In Davidson’s view, to say that all events are physical does not entail reductionism (Davidson, 1970/2002, p. 19). This is in part because Davidson is sceptical of psychophysical laws, and in part because, according to Davidson(1970) “dependence or supervenience… does not entail reducibility through law or definition” (Davidson, 1970/2002, p. 119). Many of the problems that arise to determine the physical nature of mind are related with how to accommodate the laws that may describe the universe, but ultimately these laws cannot be generalized to psychological predicates or mental properties – there is a law of gravity, but there is no law of pain.
This suggests that even though functional states are physical states, they cannot be reduced to its physical properties. Thus (combining the views of Lewis, Armstrong and Davidson), functionalism, although it is a physicalist position, is non-reductive. Some problems of functionalism. One of the advantages of the view of Lewis and Armstrong is the role of the phenomenal character of experience.
According to Lewis “What it is the phenomenal character of his state? If it feels to him like pain, then it is pain, whatever its causal role of physical nature. If not it isn’t. It’s that simple! ” (Lewis, 1980/1991, p. 233) However, the phenomenal character of experience in functionalism has been the source or many debates, for instance Block suggest that functionalism may assume “that systems that lack of mentality have mentality” (Block, 2007, p. 70).
In other words, how can it be known that a robot or computer or other creature under a functionalist view is or is not full of mental activity? As a result of such puzzles, some have argued that qualia do not have a functional role -‘absent qualia’ arguments. For instance, Block has proposed the “Chinese nation” mental experiment to support the view of the lack of phenomenal qualities in the functional sates (Block, 2007, pp. 70-73). But this argument may itself have some problems.
For instance, if a system is equivalent functionally to a given creature, and since the “Chinese nation” is conceived as ‘functionally equivalent to that creature, then it is not the case that an exact duplicate may lack some features of the original. Robert Van Gulick suggests another line of arguments against absent qualia, Van Gulick asserts that “The ultimate outcome of such theorizing remains an empirical question not open to a priori answer. ” (Gulick, 1992/1997, p. 441).
In other words, this can only be answered as empirical research into consciousness progresses However, it is at this stage of sciences is possible to say that empirical research is unlikely to bring about an explanation without remainder in purely reductive terms. For, as Chalmers maintains,” it might be found that systems that duplicate our functional organization will be conscious even if they are made of silicon, constructed out of water-pipes, or instantiated in an entire population” (Chalmers, 1995, p. 27) – that is one the characteristics of functionalism, and nonreductive physicalism: the idea of multiple realizability.
So the argument of absent qualia is flawed and is not a threat to functionalism or non-reductive physicalism. A physicalist framework in non-reductive terms has now been explored, the implications of which has an impact in other fields. The nonreductive view is characterised by plurality, flexibility and optimism, but it needs to be accompanied by more empirical research.