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Externalism and Causality: Simulation and the Prospects for a Reconciliation
Author(s) -
Warren DÔna D.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0017.00107
Subject(s) - externalism , appeal , causality (physics) , internalism and externalism , epistemology , psychology , content (measure theory) , mental representation , philosophy , mathematics , cognition , law , mathematical analysis , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , political science
Externalism in the philosophy of mind has been invoked by some philosophers to argue that content‐bearing mental states can’t serve as the explananda in genuinely causal explanations of behaviour. In this paper, I demonstrate that such arguments presuppose that psychological explanations are theory‐based and that, if this theoretical conception of psychological explanation is replaced by the simulation model, we remove the source of the apparent tension between externalism and caus‐ality and are in a position to understand how appeal to content‐bearing mental states may be causally explanatory.