It is a prevalent view that mental events or states, e.g. desires and beliefs, contribute causally to the bodily movements involved in action. Descartes, holding that mental states are non-material, thought the point of interaction was the pineal gland. As against this, it is often held nowadays that the notion of non-physical interference is incoherent, since the physical world is a closed system. So Davidson, working with this assumption, has argued that in order for mental states to produce their physical effects they must themselves be physical. Crane and Mellor reject the physicalist closed-system assumption, arguing that psychophysical laws are every bit as genuine as the laws of physics.
Mental causation remains very much a subject of live debate.
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy 3. All rights reserved.