Still a Cause for Concern:

Reasons, Causes and Explanations

“During the heyday of neo-Wittgensteinian and Rylean philosophy

of mind the era of little red books, it was said that propositional
attitude explanations are not causal explanations and that beliefs,
intendings, imaginings and the like are not even candidates
to be causes....We have come a long way since then. The work of Davidson,
Armstrong, Putnam and Fodor (amongst others) has reversed what was once
orthodoxy and it is now widely agreed that propositional attitude
attributions describe states and episodes which enter into causal relations”

– Lepore and Loewer 1989, p. 175

1. Introduction

If propositional attitude psychology must be understood by normative,

interpretationalist lights then it cannot be reduced or naturalised.
Nonetheless, some interpretationalists hope to make peace with naturalism
by subscribing to a form of non-reductive physicalism.i The need to make
this accommodation is typically motivated by a desire to respect a causalist
view of reasons and their mode of explanation. Today’s analytic
philosophers of mind, whether of reductionist or non-reductionist
persuasion, view causalism as not only the dominant view in the field, it has
the status of the new orthodoxy, as Lepore and Loewer attest. This is
unfortunate because, minimally, causalism obscures what is most important
in the study of reason-explanations and, maximally, in its most common
Humean forms, it is unintelligible in this domain. The concern of this paper
is to establish the former and to motivate the project of finding a
replacement understanding of ‘mental causation’.ii The strategy is as
follows: I critically investigate Davidson’s sophisticated non-reductive
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version of the causalist thesis (section 2). This analysis is useful because it
reminds the reader that treating reason-explanations as a kind of causal
explanation is necessary in one sense, this does no explanatory work in
answering the key methodological question: How do we determine for
which reasons we act? It is because Davidson does not pretend to answer
the latter question, and because his account does not depend on doing so,
that it is distinct from and, prima facie, superior to reductive versions of
causalism. Section 2 is devoted to making this case since this feature of
Davidson’s work has not been given the attention it deserves.
Since regarding reasons-explanations as a species of causal explanation
was never meant to solve the Primary Reason problem I consider what
really motivates Davidson to identify reasons with causes (section 3).
Essentially, this idea was introduced in order to explain the mysterious
connection between reasons and actions. This is what persuaded him to
think that reasons must be causes of some sort. But in the light of his
commitment to interpretationalism and thus non-reductionism, he
developed the metaphysics of anomalous monism in order to show that his
endorsement of causalism is coherently intelligible. Many dissent. It is
widely held that anomalous monism is unworkable a solution to this
problem. A standard verdict is that it is incompatible with mental causalism
because it entails epiphenomenalism. Davidson has an available reply to this
critique which I have discussed elsewhere under the moniker the Extension
Reply (Hutto 1998a).
Unfortunately, if anomalous monism is to be a stable doctrine the
Extension Reply must be read weakly (see section 3). The price of achieving
stability in this way is that Davidson’s compatiblist metaphysics is unfit for
the task of solving the mysterious connection problem. In a nutshell,
endorsement of the weak reading leaves us unable to justify the principle of
the nomological character of causality (hereafter the PNCC). Yet unless
independent support for this principle can be found there is no argument for
anomalous monism. This is damning, for without support for such a
principle there is no sound basis to suppose that causal relations can, in
principle, always be fully explained by appeal to the laws of an ideal
physics. It appears that only some or other straightforward reductionist
account could provide an appropriate basis for causalism.iii But, like
 Still a Cause for Concern 3

Davidson, I believe that reductive accounts are incapable of dealing with the
special, normative character of reasons explanations (Hutto, 1999). If so we
ought to reverse the orthodoxy once again and eschew causalism about
reasons and reason-explanations. I conclude by suggesting a possible way of
recasting our understanding of causation in this domain so that the
mysterious connection problem disappears (section 4).

2. The ‘Primary Reason’ Problem

Some philosophers find it self-evident that we are committed in our

everyday practice and discourse to the idea that psychological phenomena
cause, and are caused by physical events (e.g. events in our bodies and
environment). Certainly we commonly speak of reasons, beliefs, feelings,
anxieties, pains, and a host of other psychological phenomena as if they
were appropriate items to mention in the explanation of the production of
rough grained intentional actions. Likewise, we often explain the occurrence
of particular thoughts, feelings and pains by appeal to the apparent fact that
they have been caused by non-psychological events, both inside and outside
our bodies.iv The fact that we engage in such talk is the ground for the view
that, in general, a large range of psychological phenomena, and reasons, in
particular, are both causally efficacious and warrant causal forms of
explanation.
However there was a period in relatively recent history when this
allegedly commonplace insight was far from universally accepted in
philosophical circles. For example, consistent with his rejection of the
‘Intellectualist Legend’ Ryle cautioned that “we should not swallow the
traditional stories about the occult antecedents of either deliberate or
impulsive actions” (Ryle 1949 p. 115). Likewise Melden’s target, in his book
Free Action, was the “apparently innocuous suggestion that free action is to
be distinguished from action that is not free, not by the absence of causal
conditions, but by the presence of certain specific sorts of mental causes”
(Melden 1961, p. ix).
As the opening quotation notes, Davidson was the central figure in
reversing the non-causalist orthodoxy concerning reasons and their mode of
explanation. The main thrust of his seminal article, “Action, Reasons and

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Causes”, is designed to convince us: that (i) a merely teleological analysis of

intentional action is inadequate to deal with the mysterious connection
problem, and that (ii) it is at least possible that reasons could be causes.
Furthermore, despite his sympathy for some aspects of the teleological
approach, he endeavoured to supply sturdy support for the conviction that
(iii) reason-explanations must be understood as a species of causal
explanation. But Davidson’s position is sophisticated and, because it
highlights features that put him at odds with other more reductive causalist
accounts, it must be handled with care.
Consider his claim that citing a reason (which he calls a primary reason)v
is not the same as citing the reason for an action. Usually a person has more
than one primary reason for acting at any given time, yet in many
circumstances only one of these is the reason for the action. A wealth of
alternative belief/desire pairs could make sense of any given action, but
citing one or another as the cause is allegedly necessary if we are to explain
why a person acted (Davidson 1987b, p. 42).
Consider this scenario: I have promised my wife that I will wash the
dishes before five o’clock, and being a man of my word I intend to do so.
According to Davidson this counts as a primary reason, a rationale, for my
doing the washing up before the appointed time. However, it may be the
case that, despite my intention to keep this promise, the reason I actually do
the washing up before five o’clock is because, unexpectedly, I get a phone call
from a friend who has decided to come round for tea at four. Since the tea
cups are at the bottom of the pile, and I don’t want my friend to see the
kitchen in a state, I choose to do the washing up before he arrives. In this
case the latter reason (my desire to get some clean cups and to keep a tidy
house for my visitor) pre-empts the former reason (my desire to be true to
my word) in the production, and hence explanation, of this action. In other
words, citing the latter reason explains – tells us why in fact – in this
instance, I did the washing up.
With this sort of situation in mind, Davidson argues that we must read
the because in such common remarks as “I did the washing up because I
wanted to impress my visitor” as indicating a causal relation.vi What
separates a reason for acting from the reason for acting is that when we give
the reason we are attempting to designate the mental event(s) which, as far
 Still a Cause for Concern 5

as we can tell, actually ‘produced’, ‘brought about’, ‘was responsible for’ or

‘caused’ the action in question.vii This is how the ‘champion of the causal
analysis’ intends to show that “when we offer the fact of the desire and
belief in explanation, we imply not only that the agent had the desire and
belief, but that they were efficacious in producing the action” (Davidson
1980a, p. 232). He concludes that when we give the reason for acting we
must cite the cause of the behaviour.
Using Melden as a foil, Davidson sets out to show that to accept the non-
causalist position is to be “without an analysis of the ‘because’ in ‘He did it
because ...’ where we go on to name a reason” (Davidson 1980a, p. 11). He
uses the example of a man who signals when approaching a turn to
illustrate the problem. If we look at these events as causally unconnected
then, although we can make sense of the arm-raising in terms of social
context (it being the appropriate kind of action to take by sensible road
users), we have yet to explain why the man took this action in this instance.
All that could be said in this case is that “He had a reason to raise his arm,
but this has not been shown to be the reason why he did it” (Davidson
1980a, p. 11). Thus, the most serious objection to Melden’s neo-
Wittgensteinian account of reason explanations is that it overlooks the need
to connect the reason to the action. It is mainly on this ground that
Davidson, contrary to the Wittgensteinian tradition of the time, insisted in
his early essays that reason-explanations were a species of causal
explanation and that “[a] reason is a rational cause” (Davidson 1980a, p.
233). He claimed that:

Much of the explanatory force of reason-explanations comes from the

fact that they specify which pair, from among the vast number of belief-
desire pairs that were suited to cause the action, actually did cause it
(Davidson 1987b, p. 42).

But this claim can mislead. It may appear to say that by giving attention
to the causal character of reasoned explanations we will be able to designate
which belief/desire pair caused the action thereby furnishing the requisite
explanatory force. But careful consideration of Davidson’s wider account
reveals that this cannot be right. For example, consider how we actually

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designate the reason for acting. We generally ask the person and accept their
answer. And, unless we have good reason to think our conversant is
unreliable, we treat the other as an authority in these matters. They are in
the best position to provide a true narrative about why they did what they
did. It is with this in mind that Johnston writes:

The individual is treated not as a site of causal processes but as an

agent, and qua agent he is attributed a privileged role, for by citing a
consideration he authoritatively locates his action in the wider network
of aims and intentions which gave it its sense (Johnston 1989, p. 45).

Accepting this does not commit one to the view that our reasons are
always obvious or transparent to ourselves or others. In developing a careful
explication of my action, I need to review my reasons. Perhaps there are
many and perhaps, in the end, no single or simple explanation will do (i.e.
most reason-explanations contrast with the relatively transparent situation
of the ‘washing up’ scenario). For instance, if asked why I am typing this
page right now I might answer: I may be typing it simply to finish this paper
before start of next semester, or out of a sense of duty, or in the hope of
getting my thoughts clear. Perhaps I am typing it for all of these reasons at
once. I may favour one, or all, of these explanations and it would still be
possible that someone may offer an interpretation that will convince me that
I am, in fact, mistaken or (worse) self-deceived. But that requires furnishing
a more plausible or powerful account of the wider pattern of my behaviour
that is consistent with the facts of the case.
What is important for this argument is that, as Johnston makes explicit,
Davidson accepts this.

To return to the example Davidson considers, if we wished to find out

why the man raised his arm the appropriate way to do so would be to
ask him. His statement would demonstrate that not only did he have a
reason to raise his arm but that was his reason for so doing. Here
Davidson would accept that the agent has a privileged role in stating his
reasons for action (Johnston 1989, p. 45, emphasis mine).
 Still a Cause for Concern 7

Here we might wonder, what gives the agent the authority of saying
which one out of a host of possible reasons actually causes the action? How
does the agent come by this knowledge? Some would suggest that the agent
has epistemically transparent access to this special class of internal causal
events (i.e. reasons). To make this plausible it would be necessary to clarify
the nature of this special relation between persons and their mental events in
such a way that explains the nature of this privileged access.viii It is not
unusual that introspective mechanisms of some kind or other are posited to
do this sort of work. Apart from the crude metaphysics inspired by such
approaches, the most serious problem with many such accounts is that they
give too much authority to the agent.ix Self-interpreters can be badly
mistaken about the reasons for their actions. We question this when their
accounts fail to fit with their more general pattern of behaviour. It is also
revealed when details of their accounts conflict with the known facts. This
does not result in a collapse of understanding but a challenge to the agent’s
honesty (see Davidson 1980a, p. 18). So, while we must recognise that a
certain degree of first-person authority exist we must also recognise that
there is still an important epistemic gap between us and our reasons.
In this light we might ask: Does endorsing a causalist account of reasons
properly characterise or help us to understand how we come to know about
our reasons for acting? If reason-explanations are treated as straightforward
causal explanations, as proposed by reductionist accounts, then deciding
why someone acts is no different from making hypothetical judgements
about causes of any other kind. It is typically thought we infer these on the
basis of some theory – in this case by appeal to a folk theory of mind. But
this cannot be the right story either. A wholly third-personal method – as
proposed by theory theorists – is not a live option either because it gives too
little authority to the agent.
So the question remains: How do we determine which reason, or reasons,
best explains an action? When making our reply we should to be mindful of
Wittgenstein’s query:

What is the difference between cause and motive? – How is the motive
discovered, and how the cause? (Wittgenstein 1953, p. 224).

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Davidson is alive to this question. On his account the reason for acting
must be designated, to borrow Hornsby’s idiom, from within the ‘personal
point of view’.x We must somehow decide that one belief/desire pair has
explanatory priority over others and then designate it as the cause - not the
other way around. But if this is the correct explanatory order then treating
the ‘because’ as indicating a causal relation doesn’t perform the job of
helping us adjudicate between competing hypotheses in the way ‘looking
for the cause’ of say a plane crash would. In the latter case we begin by
attempting to reconstruct the events surrounding the crash (as they relate to
the particular case). We subsequently employ our general knowledge of
what tends to happen in like cases so as to isolate the cause. But, I say again,
this is not the method used when we give reasons for our actions. No appeal
to inductive regularity is involved. In itself this is not damning to causalism.
For as Davidson notes, we do not always have to appeal to induction in
order to know that a causal relation exists or to accept that there are causal
laws at work. He writes:

induction is a good way to learn the truth of a law. It does not follow
that it is the only way to learn the truth of a law. In any case, in order to
know that a singular causal statement is true, it is not necessary to
know the truth of a law; it is necessary only to know that some law
covering the events at hand exists. And it is far from evident that
induction, and induction alone, yields knowledge that a causal law
satisfying a certain condition exists. Or to put it differently, one case is
often enough, as Hume admitted, to persuade us that a law exists, and
this amounts to saying that we are persuaded without direct inductive
evidence that a causal relation exists (Davidson 1980a, p. 18).

But the point to note is that unlike other causal investigations, in the case
of reasons, we begin and end by making a true singular causal statement
only after having decided why it is that we acted. On this basis, we simply
assume that there is a law available under some other description which
explains the causal relation. The point is that appeal to causality here does
nothing to eliminate or discredit any of the alternative rationalisations of our
action. This is further highlighted when we consider that reason-
 Still a Cause for Concern 9

explanations will never be reduced to causal explanations due to their

normative character.xi As long as we concern ourselves with the perspectives
of agents our practice of citing reasons to explain actions propositional
attitude – or folk – psychology will not develop into a nomological science
(cf. Lennon 1992, Tanney 1995, p. 118, Johnson 1998, p. 45-47). When we
explain ourselves by appeal to reasons we do not have, and cannot hope for,
a closed system for the assignment of psychological attitudes such that it
could be suitably reduced to a system of psychological laws. To get such
laws we would have to completely abandon (or alter) the enterprise of
commonsense or folk psychology. If this correct, then it should not surprise
us that we must be content to talk of reasons causing a subject’s behaviour
and actions, as we often do, without being able to identify such causal
relations by appeal to the standard regularity criterion, without our
knowing any psychophysical laws, and even without the prospect of such
laws ever being developed.xii Laws are the province of some of the natural
sciences – they are not part of the understanding of one another we gain by
interpreting each other as agents who act for reasons (cf. Hutto 2008a-c,
2009).xiii
Once again the point is that since Davidson steadfastly denies that the
reason (which is also the cause) is discernible from the naturalistic
perspective, he robs it of the explanatory role of eliminating competing
hypotheses; a crucial part of what makes for genuine causal investigations in
other domains. As long as the reason for acting is designated with initial
deference to the agent, as opposed to giving an impersonal analysis, then
labelling the reason as the cause does no discriminatory labour.
Importantly Davidson’s account is not, on this score, any advance on
Melden’s since he is unwilling to embrace a more thorough-going
naturalism. On the issue of how the reason for action is initially identified,
Davidson shows himself to be in substantial agreement with the neo-
Wittgensteinians.xiv Hence treating the ‘because’ in reason-attributions as
indicating a ‘causal relation’ doesn’t provide a means of solving the Primary
Reason problem.
This is problematic because causalism is misleading on this score.
Acceptance of causalism tends to direct attention away from this critically
important aspect in the study of reason explanations because it doesn't

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advertise its impotency to deal with the Primary Reason problem on its
sleeve. In thinking about how to deal properly with that problem we might
consider Julia Tanney’s proposal. She claims that “The ‘something that is
missing’ from the primary reason account is, if anything, a more complex
interpretation that would include competing reasons, values, judgements
manifesting choices, and so on, and no doubt this interpretation will be
dependent on what the agent is disposed to say about his own actions”
(Tanney 1995, p. 114). This is not the place to explore or develop this idea,
but it is congenial to the kind of narratively-based approach to
understanding folk psychology I have developed in other writings (Hutto
1997, 2007, 2008a-c, 2009).

3. The Mysterious Connection Problem

The foregoing section exposes that Davidson’s work provides no reason for
believing in causalism as a means of resolving the Primary Reason problem
– i.e. of choosing for which reason one might have acted out of the many
possible reasons for which one might done so. Insisting that reasons are
causes and that reason-explanations are causal in character gives no
explanatory edge in settling that question. But this was never the true
purpose of Davidson’s original appeal. As Child notes “The point of the
argument for a causal view is not that we must appeal to causation in order
to tell whether S F-d for one reason rather than another; it is, rather, that we
must appeal to causation in order to understand the metaphysics of the relation
between reason and action” (Child 1994, p. 96, second emphasis mine). The
true motivation for thinking that reasons are causes and reason explanations
are a species of causal explanation is that it helps to deal with the
Mysterious Connection problem. Adopting that view places reasons into a
familiar metaphysical and explanatory framework. Whichever belief/desire
pair we take to describe the reason for acting the assumption is that it is
connected to the consequent action by a causal relation. But, on its own, the
assumption of an unreduced causal relation of this kind doesn’t solve any
mysteries. Things will only improve if we regard reasons as causes and can
successfully incorporate this view into a wider metaphysical account. Such
an account must persuade us that reason explanations are, in an important
 Still a Cause for Concern 11

sense, just like other causal explanations. But, if Davidson is right, this must
be done without threatening their autonomy or ignoring any of their special
features.
Davidson offers an account that aims to do just this in the form of a token
identity theory which enables us to hold that one and the same event can
have ‘mental’ and physical descriptions.xv These descriptions are forever
separated. Still if we accept the idea that mental descriptions pick out
particular events which can be re-described in the language of an ideal
physics then it is possible to adopt a weak version of the Humean view
about the nature and explanation of causal relations.xvi A subscriber to such a
view accepts “that ‘A caused B’ entails that there exists a causal law
instantiated by some true descriptions of A and B” (Davidson 1980a, p. 16,
emphasis added). Davidson’s purpose in adopting this reading is to show
that “it does not follow that we are able to dredge up a law if we know a
singular causal statement to be true; all that follows is that there must be a
covering law” (Davidson 1980a, p. 160). He believes the covering law we
require can be provided under an entirely different description of the events
in question. Events simpliciter enter into causal relations even if such
relations are only truly (or fully) explained under certain descriptions.
Moreover, Davidson famously argues that acceptance of such an identity
theory is the only way to consistently hold the following three orthodox
principles:

(i) Principle of the Causal Interaction of the Mental: Some mental events
cause, and are caused by, physical events.

(ii) Principle of the Nomological Character of Causality: Each true

singular causal statement is backed by a strict law connecting events
of kinds to which events mentioned as cause and effect belong.

(iii) Principle of the Anomalousness of the Mental: propositional attitude

psychology is normative and cannot make appeal to homonomic
laws (Davidson, 1980a, p. 233).xvii

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Before moving on, it is useful to clarify Davidson’s position on one point.

He has, occasionally, tried to motivate acceptance of his token identity view
by appeal to the idea that the psychological domain is dependent on the
physical. For example, he writes: “although I am urging that, psychological
characteristics cannot be reduced to the ... [physical, biological,
physiological], nevertheless they may be (and I think they are) strongly
dependent on them. Indeed, there is a sense in which the physical
characteristics of an event determine the psychological characteristics”
(Davidson 1980a, p. 253, emphasis mine). Furthermore, he has appealed to
the notion of supervenience to clarify the nature of this non-reductive
relationship of dependency (see also Kim, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1984a, 1984b,
1990).24 There is disagreement in the literature as to the exact nature of
supervenience relationships and what they entail. The concept admits of
several interpretations, some stronger than others.xviii
Strong psychophysical supervenience is characterised as the view that
“no two possible events (objects, states) can agree in all physical
characteristics and differ in some mental characteristic” (McLaughlin, 1985,
p. 360). However, this unrelativised version of supervenience is quite strong,
since it implies that one could distinguish supervenient properties solely in
terms of subvenient (i.e. physical) properties across all possible worlds and
times. This implies the theoretical possibility of predicting the occurrence of
a mental event while knowing nothing other than what was going on at the
physical level. Since Davidson explicitly rules out the possibility of such
predictions he regards strong supervenience as too strong.xix Given this,
some non-reductionists suggest that the psychophysical relationship should
be understood in terms of weak supervenience (Haugeland 1982, Seager
1988). Weak supervenience is standardly defined as the view that “there is
no possible world in which two events (objects, states) in that world agree in
all their physical characteristics and differ in some mental characteristic”
(McLaughlin 1985, p. 360).xx Characterising weak supervenience in this way
makes the relation between the psychological and the physical looser and is
therefore, comparatively, more promising. On this construal psychological
properties can vary in their relations to physical properties across possible
worlds.
 Still a Cause for Concern 13

But continuing with this ‘three bears’ saga, some have complained that
weak supervenience is too weak since it remains “silent about across-world
comparisons” (Heil 1992, p. 69). Unless it is qualified in important ways, it
permits the existence of physically (or metaphysically) possible worlds with
no mental events at all but in which the physical facts are identical to this
one. The problem is that unchecked talk of physically possible worlds in the
context of supervenience claims is not useful (see Seager 1988, p. 705-707,
Crane and Mellor 1990, p. 203-205).
Although some concerns about the plausibility of Davidson’s anomalous
monism focus on his interpretation of the supervenience relation such
attention is misguided. Any fruitful discussion of supervenience, invoking
the machinery of possible worlds, requires the assumption of relationships
between types of events. But Davidson is adamant that his account only
concerns token events (cf. Davidson 1993, p. 15). Hence, if we are speaking
of individual, unique and unrepeatable events then it makes no sense to
imagine the same event, in another possible world containing differences,
e.g. having different mental properties but the same physical ones. By
Davidson’s lights this would be to imagine a different event altogether. In a
personal correspondence, he writes:

I am obdurate about the claim that anomalous monism must be ‘strong’

or ‘weak’. It isn’t strong because it denies the possibility of nomological
reduction; it isn’t weak because it doesn’t lead to epiphenomenalism. I
hold that if worlds are alike in all physical properties they are alike in
all properties (mental, aesthetic, moral). It follows that a world with all
the physical properties of this world is this world (Davidson, personal
communication, April 12 1993).

He makes his views about supervenience clear in saying: “the idea I had
in mind is, I think, most economically expressed as follows: a predicate p is
supervenient on a set of properties S if and only if p does not distinguish
any entities that cannot be distinguished by S” (Davidson 1993, p. 4)xxi
Certainly, as he points out, this reading implies monism and is consistent
with a token identity theory (see Buekens, 1997). In fact, it is just another
way of expressing that thesis. Hence, given Davidson’s idiosyncratic

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understanding of the supervenience claim his account is best understood

solely in terms of token identity.
Even in this form anomalous monism has been subject to the criticism
that, despite claims to the contrary, it makes mental properties
epiphenomenal.xxii Thus Honderich argues that it is only by mentioning
certain law-like properties that we can fully explain the causal relations
between events. The general form of the critique goes like this: if we accept
the principle of the nomological character of causality (hereafter, PNCC), as
Davidson explicitly does, then it is only the law-like physical properties of
an event which explain its causal potency. Thus, being anomalous, the
contentful properties of an event are both impotent and explanatorily
irrelevant. Davidson is therefore presented with the dilemma to say either
that (a) the mental causally interacts with the physical in nomological
fashion or (b) not at all.
His reply is that his critics have misunderstood his views concerning the
extensional nature of causal relations and the intensional character of causal
explanations. In advancing this line he claims that talk of causal relations
between properties is a red herring. For although we may wish to mention
various properties when giving certain types of causal explanations, as
when we speak of two particular events as causally related, it is senseless to
speak of them as being related in virtue of this or that set of properties. That
is to say the very same event (at time t, place p) which is picked out as my
reason for acting is also the same event (at time t, place p) which enters into
a nomic relation with other events. That nomic relation can only be
explained in physical discourse.
Davidson’s point is that the way in which we pick out the event matters
not to the causal relations that hold between the events in extension. Causal
relations hold between events simpliciter even if certain facts are only fully
explained when the events in question are presented under certain
descriptions. On this view it would appear that the problem of the causal
impotency of mental properties no longer arises given that it is the events
themselves that stand in casually related to one another, and they do not do
so in virtue of their various properties (see McLaughlin 1993, p. 23). Causal
relations are primitive. This is what licenses Davidson’s claim that “if
causality is a relation between events, then it holds between them no matter
 Still a Cause for Concern 15

how they are described” (Davidson 1993, p. 6). I call this his Extension
Reply.
However, there are two ways to read the Extension Reply; one weaker
and one stronger. On the weak reading, although we can accept that two
events are causally related in extension we have no clue why such a relation
holds between them. If we understand events in extension in this way it
implies that, in any given case, the fact that a causal relation holds between
two events is an essentially mysterious, brute fact. For this reason
McLaughlin notes that causal relations are not accounted for by Davidson at
all, given that he “would deny that events are causally related in virtue of
falling under strict laws” (McLaughlin 1993, p. 35, see also McLaughlin 1993,
p. 32, Kim 1993, p. 22, and Sosa 1993, p. 42, emphasis added). In the light of
his token identity solution it is clear why Davidson must take this line. Laws
are intensional (with an ‘s’), hence although in certain contexts they are
supposed to give us a full explanation of causal relations they cannot make
an appearance metaphysically speaking.
The trouble is that, as I have elsewhere argued, endorsing this version of
the Extension Reply on its own does not justify acceptance of the PNCC (cf.
Hutto 1998a, p. 51-55). And it is the PNCC which is meant to give us
reassurance that the explanatory work can be done which provides the
solution to the Mysterious Connection problem. But, unless we have an
independent reason to accept the PNCC, why should we believe that there is
always a law at work, under some description, which will explain causal
connections however they are described? The independent reason which
Davidson supplies is in the form of his cause-law thesis. The ‘cause-law’
thesis insists, on Kantian grounds, that “we know in advance of evidence ...
that if a singular causal claim is true, there is a law that backs it, and we can
know this without knowing what the law is” (Davidson 1995, p. 264). xxiii But
this is too strong. The problem for Davidson’s larger project is that if we
were to accept that there is an a priori, necessary link between the concepts
of ‘cause’ and ‘law’ (as the cause-law thesis demands) on what grounds
could, or should, we deny that events in extension are connected to one
another in virtue of their law-like properties when they are causally related?
The a priori nature of the ‘cause-law’ thesis, combined with Davidson’s view
that a logical analysis of language is an accurate guide to metaphysics,

15
16

encourages, if not implies a stronger, unworkable version of the Extension

Reply.
For it is true, as McLaughlin notes, that even if we accepted the Extension
Reply in spirit we could still specify which properties of events underwrite
causal relations. He points out that even if: “causal relations are extensional
relations between events [this] is straightforwardly compatible with the
claim that when events are causally related, they are so in virtue of
something about each” (McLaughlin 1993, p. 32). Therefore, we might ask,
along with Kim, “What is it about events c and e that makes it the case that c
is the cause of e?” (Kim 1993, p. 22). Given Davidson’s commitment to the
cause-law thesis, it may appear that a metaphysical version of PNCC is the
obvious candidate for answering this question. It is thus possible to
advocate a stronger version of the Extension Reply and hold that events are
causally related in extension insofar as they are related in virtue of certain
law-like properties. This would even justify Davidson’s view that when we
say that events are causally related we are universally committed to the idea
that there is a law which explains this connection available under some
description.
But this version of the Extension Reply allows for the resurrection of the
original charge of epiphenomenalism. It renders the mental aspects of events
causally impotent, systematically. Furthermore, a commitment to this kind
of hard physicalism opens up very serious questions about the metaphysical
status of the propositional attitudes. It is difficult to see how such
phenomena could maintain any reality rights in a universe that, when truly
described in exclusively physical terms, is wholly deterministic. For
example, a strict nomological view of the nature of causal relations between
events as being all there really is at rock bottom rules out the possibility of
content because such a view of the ultimate nature of reality is incompatible
with the possibility of misrepresentation, and thereby representation itself.
Even Fodor has recognised that it is a ‘formal feature’ of any account of
representation that it must have an anomic character as described by the
asymmetric dependency theory of content. This is also why Davidson
rightfully employs an unreduced notion of cause in his interpretation theory
(see Hutto 1996, p. 138-139 for a discussion).
 Still a Cause for Concern 17

For this reason the only move compatible with non-reductionism is to

adopt the weak reading of the Extension Reply. However, that reading
leaves the nature of causal relations mysterious. It follows that if we are
seeking a principled account of why reasons and actions are connected then
Davidson is bound to disappoint. At most we know simply that they are.
Thus, despite causalist promises, the problem of the connection between
reason and action is still a cause for concern.

4. The Mysterious Connection Problem Reconsidered

In conclusion, it is worth emphasising that Davidson’s primary motivation

for promoting a causalist treatment of ‘because’ in reason-explanations
derives from his admiration of Aristotle’s account of action. He explicitly
says, it is Aristotle who “introduc[es] the concept of wanting as a causal
factor” (Davidson, 1980a p. 11; cf. Davidson 1987b, p. 40). Further, he adds “I
would urge that, failing a satisfactory alternative, the best argument for a
scheme like Aristotle’s is that it alone promises to give an account of the
‘mysterious connection’ between reasons and actions” (Davidson 1980a, p.
11). But as we have just seen if he is to sponsor a consistent non-
reductionism the only way that Davidson can approach this problem is by
endorsing the weak version of the Extension Reply. But, if so, he makes no
advance on the mystery in question, so it is a mistake to think that
Davidson’s causalism can be motivated on the grounds he states.
Moreover, the way in which the Mysterious Connection problem would
have been dealt with by Aristotle is a far cry from the way in which it is
handled by assuming a Humean-based vision of causation – even a weak
one (cf. Johnson 1989, p. 46). To ally oneself with Aristotle on the issue of the
way in which reasons are causes is to re-enforce the idea that reasons gain
their explanatory force by consideration of the agent and not by any
reconciliation with an impersonal causal perspective.xxiv It is useful to
remember that Aristotelian causes and their modes of explanation are not
causal in the modern sense of the term.xxv We can note this and, without
necessarily seeking to resurrect Aristotle’s position in all its glory, use it to
endorse the kind of conclusion that Gordon reaches. He writes:

17
18

I am inclined to say that the ‘because’ in reason explanations indicates a

‘causal’ relation, but not in the same sense as in a naturalistic explanation
of, say, a tree’s being split. Rather, the relation is ‘causal’ in the original
‘primitive’ sense of ‘cause’, as Collingwood (1946) and Strawson (1985)
have urged (Gordon 1992, p. 30).

What is the primitive sense of cause to which Gordon refers? One answer
that we might seriously consider is Strawson’s proposal that our knowledge
of causality derives, in the first instance, from our ability to imaginatively
project ourselves into the world (Strawson 1985, p. 123; 1992, p. 118).
Strawson rejects the Humean account which links the development of the
concept of cause to our intellectual habits in response to the passive
observation of constant conjunctions between different events. Rather, he
suggests, the concept has its roots in our experience of ‘knocking into’ things
and being ‘knocked into’.xxvi In other words, his view is that our basic
notions of causation may stem from the phenomenological affects of our
own practical engagements with a world – from a sense of felt ‘external’
force and our resistance to such forces in the carrying out of our projects.xxvii
Initial attempts to extend the notion of cause to inanimate things would
have, at least initially, involved a projection of human-like agency onto
those things.xxviii Strawson’s analysis of the origin of the concept of causality
is interesting because it recognises and highlights a possible
anthropomorphic basis of the concept. Saying this is not to ignore that the
concept of causation has been employed elsewhere to deal with the alien
effects and behaviour of the interactions between things impersonal,
inanimate and microscopic (Strawson 1985, p. 124-125; 1992 p. 120).xxix It is
only to recognise that such uses should not be confused with a more
primitive basis of the concept of cause which better suits accounts of our
agency. Moreover, such a conception reveals that the connection between
reasons and action is not a puzzle to be solved.xxx Looking at things in this
light aborts the mysterious connection problem before it can develop.
Whatever we decide about this proposal it seems that the key to
understanding the nature of reason explanations is not to treat them as if
they were on par with other forms of causal explanation used elsewhere,
especially those of the natural sciences. This should give us pause to ask:
 Still a Cause for Concern 19

Ought we think of reason explanations as causal in any sense? Certainly,

even noting their normative character, understanding reasons requires
understanding counterfactual patterns of behaviour. Offering a reason to
explain an action sets up all sorts of defeasible, ceteris paribus expectations
about how the agent ought to have behaved in light of it (Hutto 1997, 70-72).
When an agent fails to behave in a way consistent with their stated reasons,
without convincing excuse, we become suspicious if we are not forced to
reassess what motive, if any, might be genuinely informing their actions. But
if this is the only parallel with causal explanation in the impersonal,
naturalistic sense then – depending on the notion of cause we endorse – we
may have little or reason to think of reasons as causes. Certainly, the
preceding arguments reveal we have no secure basis for thinking that much
of their explanatory force derives from their capacity to provide causal
explanations.xxxi For, if the analysis of this paper is correct, doing so neither
solves (i) the Primary Reason problem nor (ii) the Mysterious Connection
problem.

Afterward

The above paper originally published as Hutto (1999a) is reprinted here in

largely unmodified form apart from some minor stylistic changes and the
addition of a few up to date references and endnotes. I believe its core
argument has stood the test of time – at least on reviewing it I see no reason
to alert it or to qualify the conclusion in any important way.
That said, in my most recent work on the topic of mental causation I seek
to give a fundamental critique of the assumptions that promote and make
attractive reductionist approaches. For certainly since the time of penning
this piece Davidson’s approach and his brand of non-reductionism is no
longer taken as seriously as it once was by analytic philosophers.
Many today still take Davidson’s arguments for causalism seriously but
they believe his attachment to event causation is a mistake. Thus they
assume then when citing mental predicates in explaining intentional actions
the folk must be (at least trying) to identify causally relevant properties. If
not, it seems we would have to conclude that the folk are open to the
possibility that mental properties, as a class, may be causally inert; that the

19
20

mental qua mental is causally impotent. It is with this in mind that it is

widely concluded that “Davidson’s account goes against our intuitions
about the causal efficacy of the mental. It seems that only by recognizing
that events cause other events by virtue of instantiating certain properties,
can our intuitions about causal relevance be at all expressed” (Corbí and
Prades 2000, p. 13).
In Hutto (forthcoming) I argue that the so-called problem of mental
causation is an artefact of an attachment to a certain popular yet
unwarranted understanding of our folk psychological commitments –
specifically, the idea that a productive notion of causation is required for
making sense of human agency. Attachment to the misleading
understanding of causation, which finds expression in many standard
interpretations of commonsense functionalism, not only creates the problem
of mental causation but also restricts what any acceptable solution must look
like.
Yet the fact is that our folk practice tolerates other interpretations. Jackson
and Pettit (1990, 1988) introduced the idea of programme explanations. They
observe that: “We can and often do explain by citing a feature which
causally programmes without causing. Features which causally explain need
not cause. This is typically what happens when we explain in terms of
highly relational properties” (Jackson and Pettit 1988, p. 392). The basic idea
is that some property F ‘programs for’ or ‘ensures’ the presence of some
other property, P, which is causally efficacious with respect to G, although F
lacks causal efficacy with respect to G. So, to use their own example,
‘fragility’ is a dispositional property that is instantiated by a range of
possible base properties, any one of which would cause (and one which
does), e.g., glass breaking, in certain specifiable situations – by involving
certain impacts. Of course, explanations that cite mental predicates are more
informative than those that only cite dispositional properties; but plausible
explanations of both sorts might share the feature that they convey
information that is not conveyed by explanations citing base properties that
do the direct causal labour.
The point is not to defend or even place bets on the ultimate success of the
programme explanation proposal. But acknowledging its mere possibility
serves as a foil for undermining the idea that the folk are necessarily
 Still a Cause for Concern 21

committed to the idea that mental properties must cause actions in a

productive or mechanistic way. The programme explanation might be true.
Perhaps it is not. But either way its truth is consistent with our folk practice
of explaining actions in terms of reasons.
Kim tells, for example, that: “explanatory relevance or efficacy … is too
weak to be satisfying. To my mind any vindication of psychological
explanation worth having must do justice to the ‘because’ in “She winced
because she felt a sudden pain in the elbow” and to do this we need a more
robust sense of because than is provided by programme explanation” (Kim
2000, p. 77). Apparently the trouble with that account is that: “the only
relevance that is present here seems to be informational relevance” (Kim
2000, p. 75).
Allegedly, this is not good enough. But why not? Kim assumes that the
only kind of mental causation worth wanting is the productive sort, where
mentality has the “power to bring about its effects in a continuous process of
generation and production” (Kim 2007, p. 236). He insists on the need for a
‘thick’ conception of causation that involves ‘real connectedness’. Thus
attempts such as Jackson’s and Pettit’s (and others inspired by Lewis) are
dismissed as too weak and too relaxed; they threaten to cheapen or dilute
the idea that reason explanations are genuine causal explanations – i.e. that
they are causal explanations at all.
Real causation is apparently “productive causation, which respects the
locality/contiguity condition” (Kim 2007, p. 236). We need this because
what we are after is real connectedness. What is the source of these
convictions about genuine ‘robust mental causation’ (Kim 2005, p. 22)? Why
should we accept Kim’s demands in this case? My argument is that the mere
logical possibility of an alternative explanation (by means of programme
explanation) makes clear that the issue cannot be settled by attending to our
folk practices alone. It is entirely possible that what the folk find worth
mentioning may be only, strictly speaking, informationally relevant and not
causally productive. Nothing explanatorily pertinent would be lost if this
were so. Put starkly, that the factors cited by the folk are worth mentioning
does not entail that they pick out (or attempt to pick out) causally relevant
properties per se. Without additional support to secure it Kim’s demand is
problematic.

21
22

Hence, it does not follow that in talking of beliefs and desires the folk are
referring to mental properties that denote causally efficacious mental types –
properties that when appropriately instantiated productively and
mechanically bring about actions in the way supposed by traditional
analytic functionalists. To think otherwise is to simply assume a certain
narrowly based, input/output version of commonsense functionalism that
defines mental states as internal causes is a bona fide characterization of our
folk commitments. But if this assumption is the true basis of Kim’s demand
then it is not independently justified, and his rejection of viable alternatives
(such as programme explanation) is blatantly question-begging.

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i
Although Davidson is often thought to endorse non-reductive physicalism,
standard formulations of that doctrine do not offer the best way to interpret his
anomalous monism. For more on this see John Heil’s excellent contribution to
this volume.

ii I make the case against other forms of causalism in chapter two of The Presence
of Mind (1999).

iii Subsequent to the publication of the original version of this article Kim (2000,
2005) argued forcefully that reductionism is the only option for taking
causalism seriously.

iv Child observes that the main reason for thinking “action explanation is a form
of causal explanation [is] simply the conviction that an action explanation is an
explanation of something’s happening” (Child 1994, p. 109).

v According to Davidson, when we give rationalisations of a person’s behaviour

we must do so in terms of beliefs and desires (or more precisely, pro-attitudes)
– the conjunction of which he calls the primary reason for acting: “A primary
reason consists of a belief and an attitude, but it is generally otiose to mention
both” (Davidson 1980a, p. 6).

vi He writes, “If we interpret this ‘because’ as implying (among other things) a

causal relation – and I believe we must – then in describing an action as
performed with a certain intention, we have described an action with a certain
causal history” (Davidson 1980a, p. 254).

vii This is why “the causal character of the concepts used in talking about action
is an essential part of what must be grasped in coming to view the nature of
action explanation” (Davidson 1987b, p. 38).
 Still a Cause for Concern 27

viii This is consistent with Davidson’s admission that “It comes closer to
characterising first person authority to note that the self-attributer does not
normally base his claims on evidence or observation” (Davidson 1984b, p. 103).
However, he is also aware that “it is long out of fashion to explain self-
knowledge on the basis of introspection” (Davidson 1984b, p. 103). He has done
much to obviate the need to suppose the existence of special relations between
agents and posited internal events by using features of radical interpretation in
order to explain the source of first-person authority in the case of propositional-
attitude ascriptions.

ix I discuss the problems with this kind of metaphysics more fully in (Hutto,
1995b, pp. 465-466).

x Lennon notes, “a purely regularist approach would not be applicable here”

(Lennon 1992, p. 236).

xi “If we were to drop the normative aspect from psychological explanations, they
would no longer serve the purposes they do ... Physics, on the other hand, has
as an aim of developing laws that are as complete and precise as we can make
them; a different aim” (Davidson 1991a, p. 163). And, this is why Davidson
says, “[w]hen we try to understand the world as physicists, we necessarily
employ our own norms, but we do not aim to discover rationality in the
phenomena” (Davidson, 1991a, p. 162). This is why Davidson also rightly holds
that “we cannot turn [psychological] explanation into something more like
science” (Davidson 1980a, p. 233, 1987b p. 42-43).

xii In this respect, despite insisting that reason-explanations are causal

explanations we must bear in mind that Davidson also tells us that “[w]e can
explain behaviour without having to know too much about how it was caused”
(Davidson 1980a, p. 233).

xiii The special features of psychological interpretation led Wittgenstein to treat

reason-explanations as ‘further descriptions’ or ‘elucidations’ rather than causal
hypotheses (cf. Coiffi 1991, p. 172-173). This matters since it reminds us that we
do not appeal anything like the methods of sciences like physiology or
neurology when deciding why it is that someone acts. This idea is picked up
and developed further in the limits of spectatorial folk psychology (Hutto 2004)
and the attempt to understand the nature and basis of folk psychology in
narrative as opposed to theoretical terms (Hutto 2007, 2008a-c, 2009).

xiv If this is correct then other than noting a change in the size and colour of
Routledge monographs, Lepore and Loewer may be premature in their
prediction of the death of red-book philosophy.

xv I use the label ‘mental’ for ease of exposition but it is a use of which I am
suspicious because it carries unwelcome connotations.

xvi To use J.J.C. Smart’s words, the token identity theorist is “using ‘is’ in the sense
of strict identity ... there is one thing” (Davidson, 1980a, p. 212).

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xvii Davidson defines homonomic and heteronomic as follows: a homonomic

generalization is one which could be improved, with provisos, within the same
general vocabulary while a heteronomic generalization is one with an
ineliminable ad hoc character - and for which the precise law must be stated in
a different vocabulary (Davidson 1980a, p. 219).

xviii As David Charles notes, “There is clearly a dense spectrum of supervenience

relations ... [and] Davidson’s formulation is a ‘broad church’ one with very
many possibilities left open” (Charles 1992, p. 269). Nor are the strong and
weak ways of characterising the concept exhaustive. For example, global
supervenience has also emerged as a popular means of explicating the concept
of supervenience (cf. Petrie 1987, Paull & Sider 1992). For a critical assessment
of global supervenience see Kim (1987), Heil (1992) and Moser (1992).

xix If strong supervenience really were the proper way to understand the
psychophysical relation, then the materialist, given his preference for purely
‘objective’ explanations should press for what Johnston calls exhaustive
monism, which is the view that “physical facts exhaust all the facts” (Johnston
1985, p. 417). Some philosophers are willing to accept and stand by this
consequence (cf. Heil, 1992, Kim, 1987). Others have claimed that the ‘reductive
reading’ is allegedly only one, albeit common, reading of strong supervenience.
As Charles points out, “Strong supervenience does not entail reduction if one
holds to a conservative, scientifically useful notion of property” (Charles 1992,
p. 271).

xx Weak supervenience apparently makes better sense of the relationship which

Davidson had in mind, since his paradigm of a non-reductive version of
supervenience is “the supervenience of semantic predicates on syntactic
predicates: a truth predicate for a language cannot distinguish any sentences
not distinguishable in purely syntactic terms” (Davidson 1990c, p. 1, cf.
Davidson 1985b). Semantic/syntax supervenience is a case of weak
supervenience because we know, for example, that the syntactic properties of a
word might relate to different semantic properties (e.g. there are worlds where
English remains mostly the same except for the fact that ‘CAT’ means dog). As
McLaughlin says, “The supervenience of truth on syntax is surely a case of
weak supervenience: in any world, if two sentences in a language are
syntactically indiscernible, the one is true if and only if the other is true. But
obviously the truth value of many sentences can vary from one world to
another” (McLaughlin 1985, p. 365).

xxi Davidson is credited with having been the first to introduce the notion of
supervenience into the philosophy of mind. But his main concern was merely to
support his token identity theory. Thus, in a reply to Harry Lewis, he wrote
that when he introduced supervenience “what I was arguing for ... was only the
identity of mental events with physical events. I wanted to emphasize that
such ontological reduction does not imply that mental properties are physical
properties, nor that there are causal or bridging laws relating events classed by
mental properties with events classed by physical properties” (Davidson 1985b,
p. 243-244, emphasis added).
 Still a Cause for Concern 29

xxii This criticism has been raised by several philosophers (Honderich (1982-84),
Kim (1984, 1993), Sosa (1984, 1993), Johnston (1985), Fodor (1990b), Evnine,
(1991), McLaughlin (1993)). I discuss it and Davidson’s possible weak and
strong versions of the Extension Reply in (Hutto 1998a).

xxiii It is important to note that “the reason for holding the cause-law thesis ... must
in some sense be a priori, for the thesis is not a pronouncement of ordinary
logic, nor can it be established empirically” (Davidson 1995, p. 264).

xxiv The irony is that Ricoeur offers the Aristotelian position, which gives persons a
privileged place in action-theory, as a viable alternative to Davidson’s
approach. He writes: “Aristotle, well before the Stoics, made it apparent that
action depends on the agent, in a specific sense of the relation of dependence ...
How, on this base is the relation of action to agent to be stated? The most
concise expression of this relation is found in a formula that makes the agent
the principle (arkhé) of his actions, but in a sense of arché that authorises us to
say that the actions depend on (preposition epi) the agent himself (autó) (E.N.
3.1110a17)” (Ricoeur 1992, pp. 89-90).

xxv It is important to remind ourselves that Melden was explicit about the nature of
his target: “I am concerned with ‘cause’ either in the Humean sense of this term
or, if this is alleged to be inadequate in certain respects, the use of the term in
scientific explanations of, say, physical or physiological events, in that sense of
the term in which it is in fact employed in physics or physiology” (Melden
1961, p. 16).

xxvi When Strawson asks, from what impression do we derive our original notion of
causality, he suggests that “the most obvious answer relates to the experience
we have of exerting force on physical things or having force exerted on us by
physical things” (Strawson 1985, p. 122; 1992, p. 117).

xxvii This is interesting in connection with Horgan’s criticism that non-causalist

approaches do not tally with “the phenomenology of our own agency” (Horgan
1991, p. 88). He claims that agents have introspective awareness of the causal
potency of their own mental states. Dretske has replied by saying that Horgan’s
view that there are ‘here and now’ mental causes appears to based more on a
‘Davidsonian dogma’ than on an introspective fact (cf. Dretske 1991, p. 198).
But if we adopt the Strawsonian line there is a way to accommodate such a
view without accepting a Davidsonian, Humean-style vision of causation.

xxviii Again, as Strawson writes, “In a great boulder rolling down the mountainside
and flattening the hut in its path we see an exemplary instance of force; and
perhaps, in so seeing it, we are in some barely coherent way, identifying with
the hut (if we are one kind of person) or with the boulder (if we are another):
putting ourselves imaginatively in the place of one or the other” (Strawson
1985, p. 123; 1992, p. 118, emphasis added).

xxix This fits with what we know about the historical development of our attempts
to understand ourselves and the natural world. Strawson tell us: “Our
primitive, and not so primitive, theorists, aware of their own powers of agency

29
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and of the motives behind their exercise, aware, also, of vast effects in nature,
dreaded or hoped for, quite beyond their own powers directly to avert or
produce, seem to have found it utterly easy and natural to attribute these
effects to the exercise of powers by superhuman agents who, capricious as
their acts must have often appeared, were actuated by motives not wholly
alien or inscrutable” (Strawson 1985, p. 129; 1992, p. 124-125).

xxx It is worth pointing out, that while there might be some justification in thinking
that our use of the concept causation is not ‘single-tracked’ this doesn’t entail
that we have different concepts of causation. In fact, there seems to be a basic
unity to all uses of causal concepts. An examination of ordinary discourse,
psychological or otherwise, reveals that by ‘cause’ we simply mean “that which
produces an effect”. Anscombe says: “There is something to observe here, that
lies under our noses. It is little attended to, and yet still so obvious as to seem
trite. It is this: causality consists in the derivativeness of an effect from its
causes. This is the core, the common feature, of causality in its various kinds.
Effects derive from, arise out of, their causes” (Anscombe 1981, p. 136,
emphasis added).

xxxi As Melden wrote: “It is certainly true that we use ‘cause’ in speaking about the
actions of agents, but we can no more infer from this verbal consideration that
actions are the Humean effects of events than we can from the etymological
derivation of the term ‘motive’” (Melden 1961, p. 208).