Abstract

This paper examines the account offered by Bolton and Hill (1996) of how reasons can be causes, and thus how symptoms of mental disorders can be both caused and carry meaning. The central problem is to reconcile the causal and rationalizing powers of content-laden mental states. I draw out these two aspects by putting them in the context of recent work in analytical philosophy, including Davidson’s token identity theory and his account of mental disorder. The latter, however, can be used to emphasize in a novel way what is becoming a familiar charge: that Davidson does not show how mental content, as opposed to the physical bearers of that content, can itself play a causal role.

Bolton and Hill attempt to escape this charge by arguing that the distinction between reasons and causes has itself to be replaced by a distinction between intentional and non-intentional causation. The former is found in the biological and higher sciences. It applies in the case of reasons because meaning is encoded in brain states. Thus symptoms of mental disorder can both be caused and carry meaning providing they result from intentional-causal processes.

I argue, however, that this account fails on three counts. The encoding thesis does not explain how reasons as opposed to the bearers of mental content play a causal role. The counter claim that the information which neural states encode is causally relevant turns on a concept of content or information drawn from cognitive science which is merely metaphorical and which severs the connection between neural states and semantics. Third, there are some mental contents central for action explanation which have to be externally individuated and thus cannot be encoded in the brain. Finally I argue that the account that Bolton and Hill offer of mental disorder also fails for these reasons.

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