Was Wegner rejecting mental causality?

Daniel Wegner’s theory of apparent mental causation is often misread. His aim was not to question the causal effectiveness of conscious mental states, such as intentions. Rather, he attempted to show that our subjective sense of agency is not a completely reliable indicator of the causality of action and needs to be replaced by more objective means of inquiry.

Beginnings of an Account

This chapter discusses the argument of Sections 5-18 of G.E.M. Anscombe’s Intention. It begins by considering Anscombe’s reasons for defining the concept of intentional action according to “a certain sense of the question ‘Why?’”. Following this, the chapter considers Anscombe’s discussion of several ways that this question can be refused application, each of which leads her to introduce a necessary condition of intentional action. Important concepts that are discussed in this chapter include those of knowledge without observation, mental causality, motive, and the relation between causes and reasons for acting. Anscombe’s account of these matters is contrasted in several places with that of Gilbert Ryle, and it is argued, contrary to Donald Davidson, that Anscombe was not in fact an “anti-causalist” about action explanation. The chapter also considers the possibility of doing something intentionally but “for no reason”, or for reasons that one cannot easily identify or express.

How Subjects Can Emerge from Neurons

We pose a foundational problem for those who claim that subjects are ontologically irreducible, but causally reducible (weak emergence). This problem is neuroscience’s notorious binding problem, which concerns how distributed neural areas produce unified mental objects (such as perceptions) and the unified subject that experiences them. Synchrony, synapses, and other mechanisms cannot explain this. We argue that this problem seriously threatens popular claims that mental causality is reducible to neural causality. Weak emergence additionally raises evolutionary worries about how we have survived the perils of nature. Our emergent subject hypothesis (ESH) avoids these shortcomings. Here, a singular, unified subject acts back on the neurons it emerges from and binds sensory features into unified mental objects. Serving as the mind’s controlling center, this subject is ontologically and causally irreducible (strong emergence). Our ESH draws on recent experimental evidence, including the evidence for a possible correlate (or “seat”) of the subject, which enhances its testability.

Mothers’ and Teachers’ Mental-State Discourse With Preschoolers During Storybook Reading

Mothers and teachers play a pivotal role in promoting preschool children’s theory of mind. This study explored and compared mothers’ and teachers’ mental-state discourse during storybook reading with children, focusing on their use of mental terms and references to three mental-state aspects: false belief, mental causality, and different points of view. Participants were 60 mothers and their children, and 60 teachers and 300 preschoolers. Mothers read the book to one child and teachers read the same book to groups of 5 children. The book involved a central false-belief theme. Main findings revealed that mothers and teachers elaborated on book-related mental states. However, teachers’ discourse included more mental terms and more references to mental causality and different people’s perspectives. The findings suggest that reading books with rich mental-state contents encourages rich discourse on mental-state elements. Parents and teachers should be guided in how to use their unique knowledge and relationships with children to enrich their mediation of books’ mental-state aspects and discuss them with children.