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Book Review: Rational Causation , written by E. Marcus

Book Review: Rational Causation , written by E. Marcus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 266 pp. isbn 9780674059900 (hbk). £33.95. This is an excellent book that deserves careful attention from anyone whose work touches on issues in the philosophy of mind and action. In it, Marcus challenges the dominant philosophical conception of the mind’s place in nature, according to which mentalistic explanations hold true only when mental states or events cause things to happen in the same way as physical states and events do. Against this conception, Marcus argues that mental causation is utterly dissimilar to most of the causation we find in the physical realm, and that psychological achievements like believing and acting for reasons should be understood as manifestations of the rational ability self-consciously to represent good-making relations as holding between propositions and actions. Let me begin with the case of belief. According to the orthodox account, to believe something for a reason is to be in a belief-state that is caused in a certain way by another belief-state. Explicating the nature of this ‘certain way,’ in order to distinguish it from ways that beliefs can cause other beliefs without being the reasons for which they are held, is a main focus of the literature http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Moral Philosophy Brill

Book Review: Rational Causation , written by E. Marcus

Schwenkler, John
Journal of Moral Philosophy , Volume 12 (2): 235 – Mar 21, 2015
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Book Reviews
ISSN
1740-4681
eISSN
1745-5243
DOI
10.1163/17455243-01202002
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 266 pp. isbn 9780674059900 (hbk). £33.95. This is an excellent book that deserves careful attention from anyone whose work touches on issues in the philosophy of mind and action. In it, Marcus challenges the dominant philosophical conception of the mind’s place in nature, according to which mentalistic explanations hold true only when mental states or events cause things to happen in the same way as physical states and events do. Against this conception, Marcus argues that mental causation is utterly dissimilar to most of the causation we find in the physical realm, and that psychological achievements like believing and acting for reasons should be understood as manifestations of the rational ability self-consciously to represent good-making relations as holding between propositions and actions. Let me begin with the case of belief. According to the orthodox account, to believe something for a reason is to be in a belief-state that is caused in a certain way by another belief-state. Explicating the nature of this ‘certain way,’ in order to distinguish it from ways that beliefs can cause other beliefs without being the reasons for which they are held, is a main focus of the literature

Journal

Journal of Moral Philosophy – Brill

Published: Mar 21, 2015

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