Bookmark and Share
Metaphysics > Interlevel Metaphysics > Realization

Realization

Edited by Ronald Endicott (North Carolina State University)
About this topic
Summary

Popularized by Hilary Putnam in the 1960s as a way to describe relations that are implicated by machine functionalism, philosophers typically use the idiom of realization to designate a form of inter-level relation, such as the "realization" of mental states by brain states. Philosophers more recently present concepts of realization as a better way to account for inter-level relations in the sciences or a better way to preserve physicalist intuitions than concepts of supervenience and emergence.
Key works One may categorize different concepts of realization in terms of three basic conceptual traditions. There is a Semantic tradition whereby “to be realized” names a semantic relation, e.g., the satisfaction of a predicate by an object (Lewis 1972). There is a Mathematical tradition whereby “to be realized” names a mapping or correspondence relation, e.g., a one-to-one mapping between the states of an abstract machine and a concrete physical machine (Putnam 1960 and  Chalmers 1994). And there is a Metaphysical tradition whereby “to be realized” names a relation of determination, e.g., the determination of mental states by physical states. This Metaphysical tradition itself divides into several different views: realization qua parts and wholes (Cummins 1983 and Gillett 2002): realization qua functional roles and occupation (Papineau 1993, Melnyk 1994, Melnyk 2003, and Kim 2000); realization qua determinables and determinates (Macdonald & Macdonald 1986 and Yablo 1992); and realization qua subsets of causal powers (Wilson 1999, Shoemaker 2001, and Shoemaker 2007).
Introductions

There are a few general introductions: Ronald Endicott's encyclopedia article on multiple realizability (Endicott 2005), half of which is dedicated to concepts of realization; and Carl Craver and Robert Wilson's entry in a Handbook (Craver & Wilson 2006) that addresses some basic views on realization in both philosophy and the sciences.


Show all references
Related categories
Jobs in this area
Ikerbasque Research Professor
Instructor of Philosophy and Coordinator of Humanities
Probationary Tenure-Track Instructor or Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Jobs from PhilJobs
Siblings:See also:
82 found
Search inside:
(import / add options)   Sort by:
  1. Kenneth Aizawa (2013). Multiple Realization by Compensatory Differences. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 3 (1):69-86.
    One way that scientifically recognized properties are multiply realized is by “compensatory differences” among realizing properties. If a property G is jointly realized by two properties F1 and F2, then G can be multiply realized by having changes in the property F1 offset changes in the property F2. In some cases, there are scientific laws that articulate how distinct combinations of physical quantities can determine one and the same value of some other physical quantity. One moral to draw is that (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  2. Paul Audi (2011). Properties, Powers, and the Subset Account of Realization. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (3):654-674.
    According to the subset account of realization, a property, F, is realized by another property, G, whenever F is individuated by a non-empty proper subset of the causal powers by which G is individuated (and F is not a conjunctive property of which G is a conjunct). This account is especially attractive because it seems both to explain the way in which realized properties are nothing over and above their realizers, and to provide for the causal efficacy of realized properties. (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  3. Ansgar Beckermann (1997). Property Physicalism, Reduction, and Realization. In Martin Carrier & Peter K. Machamer (eds.), Mindscapes: Philosophy, Science, and the Mind. Pittsburgh University Press.
    Ansgar Beckermann Once, a mind-body theory based upon the idea of supervenience seemed to be a promising alternative to the various kinds of reductionistic physicalism. In recent years, however, Jaegwon Kim has subjected his own brainchild to a very thorough criticism. With most of Kim’s arguments I agree wholeheartedly - not least because they converge with my own thoughts.2 In order to explain the few points of divergence with Kim’s views, I shall have to prepare the ground a little. In (...)
    $28.43 used   $64.97 new   $65.00 direct from Amazon   (collection)   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  4. Richard Boyd (1980). Materialism Without Reductionism: What Physicalism Does Not Entail. In Ned Block (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology. , Vol 1.
    $3.15 used   $118.68 new   (collection)   Amazon page
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  5. David J. Chalmers (1996). Does a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton? Synthese 108 (3):309-33.
    Hilary Putnam has argued that computational functionalism cannot serve as a foundation for the study of the mind, as every ordinary open physical system implements every finite-state automaton. I argue that Putnam's argument fails, but that it points out the need for a better understanding of the bridge between the theory of computation and the theory of physical systems: the relation of implementation. It also raises questions about the class of automata that can serve as a basis for understanding the (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (12 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  6. David J. Chalmers (1994). On Implementing a Computation. Minds and Machines 4 (4):391-402.
    To clarify the notion of computation and its role in cognitive science, we need an account of implementation, the nexus between abstract computations and physical systems. I provide such an account, based on the idea that a physical system implements a computation if the causal structure of the system mirrors the formal structure of the computation. The account is developed for the class of combinatorial-state automata, but is sufficiently general to cover all other discrete computational formalisms. The implementation relation is (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  7. Carl F. Craver (2007). Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press ;.
    Carl Craver investigates what we are doing when we sue neuroscience to explain what's going on in the brain.
    $28.25 used   $29.95 new   $45.99 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  8. Carl F. Craver (2004). Dissociable Realization and Kind Splitting. Philosophy Of Science 71 (5):960-971.
    It is a common assumption in contemporary cognitive neuroscience that discovering a putative realized kind to be dissociably realized (i.e., to be realized in each instance by two or more distinct realizers) mandates splitting that kind. Here I explore some limits on this inference using two deceptively similar examples: the dissociation of declarative and procedural memory and Ramachandran's argument that the self is an illusion.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  9. Carl F. Craver (2001). Role Functions, Mechanisms, and Hierarchy. Philosophy of Science 68 (1):53-74.
    Many areas of science develop by discovering mechanisms and role functions. Cummins' (1975) analysis of role functions-according to which an item's role function is a capacity of that item that appears in an analytic explanation of the capacity of some containing system-captures one important sense of "function" in the biological sciences and elsewhere. Here I synthesize Cummins' account with recent work on mechanisms and causal/mechanical explanation. The synthesis produces an analysis of specifically mechanistic role functions, one that uses the characteristic (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  10. Carl F. Craver & Robert A. Wilson (2006). Realization. In P. Thagard (ed.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science. Elsevier.
    For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  11. Robert C. Cummins (1983). The Nature of Psychological Explanation. MIT Press.
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  12. Wim de Muijnck (2003). Wide Physical Realization. Inquiry 46 (1):97 – 111.
    In this paper I develop a theory of the physical realization of higher-level properties. I argue that physical realization is in an important sense indirect, and that at each level causal relations are crucial to realizing next-level phenomena. My account makes it intelligible how higher-level properties can be realized by wide stretches of physical reality without the inter-level dependence becoming weak, or global; it also explains how both physicalism and non-reductivism can be true.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (6 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  13. Douglas E. Ehring (1996). Mental Causation, Determinables, and Property Instances. Noûs 30 (4):461-80.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  14. Ronald P. Endicott (2012). Resolving Arguments by Different Conceptual Traditions of Realization. Philosophical Studies 159 (1):41-59.
    There is currently a significant amount of interest in understanding and developing theories of realization. Naturally arguments have arisen about the adequacy of some theories over others. Many of these arguments have a point. But some can be resolved by seeing that the theories of realization in question are not genuine competitors because they fall under different conceptual traditions with different but compatible goals. I will first describe three different conceptual traditions of realization that are implicated by the arguments under (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  15. Ronald P. Endicott (2011). Flat Versus Dimensioned: The What and the How of Functional Realization. Journal of Philosophical Research 36:191-208.
    I resolve an argument over “flat” versus “dimensioned” theories of realization. The theories concern, in part, whether realized and realizing properties are instantiated by the same individual (the flat theory) or different individuals in a part-whole relationship (the dimensioned theory). Carl Gillett has argued that the two views conflict, and that flat theories should be rejected on grounds that they fail to capture scientific cases involving a dimensioned relation between individuals and their constituent parts. I argue on the contrary that (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  16. Ronald P. Endicott (2010). Realization, Reductios, and Category Inclusion. Journal of Philosophy 107 (4):213-219.
    Thomas Polger and Laurence Shapiro argue that Carl Gillett's much publicized dimensioned theory of realization is incoherent, being subject to a reductio. Their argument turns on the fact that Gillett's definition of realization makes property instances the exclusive relata of the realization relation, while his belief in multiple realization implies its denial, namely, that properties are the relata of the realization relation on occasions of multiple realization. Others like Sydney Shoemaker have also expressed their view of realization in terms of (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  17. Ronald P. Endicott (2005). Multiple Realizability. In D. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition. Thomson Gale, Macmillan Reference.
    Multiple realizability has been at the heart of debates about whether the mind reduces to the brain, or whether the items of a special science reduce to the items of a physical science. I analyze the two central notions implied by the concept of multiple realizability: "multiplicity," otherwise known as property variability, and "realizability." Beginning with the latter, I distinguish three broad conceptual traditions. The Mathematical Tradition equates realization with a form of mapping between objects. Generally speaking, x realizes (or (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  18. Ronald P. Endicott (1994). Constructival Plasticity. Philosophical Studies 74 (1):51-75.
    Some scientists and philosophers have claimed that there is a converse to multiple realizability. While a given higher-level property can be realized by different lower-level properties (multiple realizability), a given lower-level property can in turn serve to realize different higher-level properties (this converse I dubbed the unfortunately obscure "constructival plasticity" to emphasize the constructive metaphysics involved when realizing properties generate realized properties in the stated way). I begin by defining multiple realizabilty in a formal way, then turn to the relation (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  19. Norman Y. Foo & Pavlos Peppas (2001). Realization for Causal Nondeterministic Input-Output Systems. Studia Logica 67 (3):419-437.
    There are two well-developed formalizations of discrete time dynamic systems that evidently share many concerns but suffer from a lack of mutual awareness. One formalization is classical systems and automata theory. The other is the logic of actions in which the situation and event calculi are the strongest representatives. Researchers in artificial intelligence are likely to be familiar with the latter but not the former. This is unfortunate, for systems and automata theory have much to offer by way of insight (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  20. Robert Francescotti (2010). Realization and Physicalism. Philosophical Psychology 23 (5):601-616.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  21. Robert Francescotti (2002). Understanding Physical Realization (and What It Does Not Entail). Journal of Mind and Behavior 23 (3):279-292.
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  22. Carl Gillett (2007). Hyper-Extending the Mind? Philosophical Topics 351 (1/2):161-188.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  23. Carl Gillett (2003). Nonreductive Realization and Nonreductive Identity: What Physicalism Does Not Entail. In Sven Walter & Heinz-Dieter Heckmann (eds.), Physicalism and Mental Causation. Imprint Academic.
    $20.56 used   $21.20 new   $29.90 direct from Amazon   (collection)   Amazon page
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  24. Carl Gillett (2003). The Metaphysics of Realization, Multiple Realizability, and the Special Sciences. Journal of Philosophy 100 (11):591-603.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  25. Carl Gillett (2002). The Dimensions of Realization: A Critique of the Standard View. Analysis 62 (4):316-323.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (6 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  26. Carl Gillett & Aizawa Kenneth (2009). Levels, Individual Variation and Massive Multiple Realization in Neurobiology. In John Bickle (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience. oxford university press.
    $59.90 used   $91.40 new   $111.63 direct from Amazon   (collection)   Amazon page
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  27. Matthew C. Haug (2010). Realization, Determination, and Mechanisms. Philosophical Studies 150 (3):313-330.
    Several philosophers (e.g., Ehring (Nous (Detroit, Mich.) 30:461–480, 1996 ); Funkhouser (Nous (Detroit, Mich.) 40:548–569, 2006 ); Walter (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37:217–244, 2007 ) have argued that there are metaphysical differences between the determinable-determinate relation and the realization relation between mental and physical properties. Others have challenged this claim (e.g., Wilson (Philosophical Studies, 2009 ). In this paper, I argue that there are indeed such differences and propose a “mechanistic” account of realization that elucidates why these differences hold. This (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  28. Matthew C. Haug (2007). Of Mice and Metaphysics: Natural Selection and Realized Population‐Level Properties. Philosophy of Science 74 (4):431-451.
    In this paper, I answer a fundamental question facing any view according to which natural selection is a population‐level causal process—namely, how is the causal process of natural selection related to, yet not preempted by, causal processes that occur at the level of individual organisms? Without an answer to this grounding question, the population‐level causal view appears unstable—collapsing into either an individual‐level causal interpretation or the claim that selection is a purely formal, statistical phenomenon. I argue that a causal account (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  29. John Heil (1992). The Nature of True Minds. Cambridge University Press.
    This book aims at reconciling the emerging conceptions of mind and their contents that have, in recent years, come to seem irreconcilable. Post-Cartesian philosophers face the challenge of comprehending minds as natural objects possessing apparently non-natural powers of thought. The difficulty is to understand how our mental capacities, no less than our biological or chemical characteristics, might ultimately be products of our fundamental physical constituents, and to do so in a way that preserves the phenomena. Externalists argue that the significance (...)
    $8.51 used   $30.00 new   $52.00 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  30. Giovanna Hendel (2001). Realization. Critica 33 (98):41-70.
    So far no clear explication of the notion of realization has been offered, in spite of the frequent uses of the notion in the literature to discharge important jobs, such as that of accounting for the causal efficacy of the mental in a physical world, and that of providing a viable characterization of physicalism, and/or psychophysical reduction. I put forward an account of realization as an identity-like relation. I argue that such account has the following advantages: (a) it provides a (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  31. Frank Hofmann (2007). Causal Powers, Realization, and Mental Causation. Erkenntnis 67 (2):173 - 182.
    Sydney Shoemaker has attempted to save mental causation by a new account of realization. As Brian McLaughlin argues convincingly, the account has to face two major problems. First, realization does not guarantee entailment. So even if mental properties are realized by physical properties, they need not be entailed by them. This is the first, rather general metaphysical problem. A second problem, which relates more directly to mental causation is that Shoemaker must appeal to some kind of proportionality as a constraint (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  32. Jaegwon Kim (2010). Thoughts on Sydney Shoemaker's Physical Realization. Philosophical Studies 148 (1).
    This paper discusses in broad terms the metaphysical projects of Sydney Shoemaker’s Physical Realization . Specifically, I examine the effectiveness of Shoemaker’s novel “subset” account of realization for defusing the problem of mental causation, and compare the “subset” account with the standard “second-order” account. Finally, I discuss the physicalist status of the metaphysical worldview presented in Shoemaker’s important new contribution to philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  33. Jaegwon Kim (2000). Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation. MIT Press.
    This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind...
    $9.07 used   $14.32 new   $16.32 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  34. Jaegwon Kim (1997). Supervenience, Emergence, and Realization in the Philosophy of Mind. In Martin Carrier & Peter K. Machamer (eds.), Mindscapes: Philosophy, Science, and the Mind. Pittsburgh University Press.
    $28.43 used   $64.97 new   $65.00 direct from Amazon   (collection)   Amazon page
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  35. Ernest LePore & Barry M. Loewer (1989). More on Making Mind Matter. Philosophical Topics 17 (1):175-91.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  36. Joseph Levine (2001). Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness. Oxford University Press.
    Conscious experience presents a deep puzzle. On the one hand, a fairly robust materialism must be true in order to explain how it is that conscious events causally interact with non-conscious, physical events. On the other hand, we cannot explain how physical phenomena give rise to conscious experience. In this wide-ranging study, Joseph Levine explores both sides of the mind-body dilemma, presenting the first book-length treatment of his highly influential ideas on the "explanatory gap," the fact that we can't explain (...)
    $11.97 used   $12.00 new   $37.64 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  37. Joseph Levine & Kelly Trogdon (2009). The Modal Status of Materialism. Philosophical Studies 145 (3):351 - 362.
    Materialism, as traditionally conceived, has a contingent side and a necessary side. The necessity of materialism is reflected by the metaphysics of realization, while its contingency is a matter of accepting the possibility of Cartesian worlds, worlds in which our minds are roughly as Descartes describes them. In this paper we argue that the necessity and the contingency of materialism are in conflict. In particular, we claim that if mental properties are realized by physical properties in the actual world, Cartesian (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  38. David Lewis (1972). Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (December):249-58.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (6 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  39. William G. Lycan (1987). Consciousness. MIT Press.
    In this book, William Lycan reviews the diverse philosophical views on consciousness--including those of Kripke, Block, Campbell, Sellars, and Casteneda--and ...
    $3.99 used   $18.94 new   $20.00 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  40. William G. Lycan (1979). A New Lilliputian Argument Against Machine Functionalism. Philosophical Studies 35 (April):279-87.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  41. Cynthia Macdonald & Graham F. Macdonald (1986). Mental Causes and Explanation of Action. Philosophical Quarterly 36 (April):145-58.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  42. Peter K. Machamer, Lindley Darden & Carl F. Craver (2000). Thinking About Mechanisms. Philosophy Of Science 67 (1):1-25.
    The concept of mechanism is analyzed in terms of entities and activities, organized such that they are productive of regular changes. Examples show how mechanisms work in neurobiology and molecular biology. Thinking in terms of mechanisms provides a new framework for addressing many traditional philosophical issues: causality, laws, explanation, reduction, and scientific change.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (8 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  43. Colin McGinn (1980). Philosophical Materialism. Synthese 44 (June):173-206.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  44. Brian P. McLaughlin (2007). Mental Causation and Shoemaker-Realization. Erkenntnis 67 (2):149 - 172.
    Sydney Shoemaker has proposed a new definition of `realization’ and used it to try to explain how mental events can be causes within the framework of a non-reductive physicalism. I argue that it is not actually his notion of realization that is doing the work in his account of mental causation, but rather the assumption that certain physical properties entail mental properties that do not entail them. I also point out how his account relies on certain other controversial assumptions, including (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  45. Andrew Melnyk (2010). Comments on Sydney Shoemaker's Physical Realization. Philosophical Studies 148 (1).
    This paper interprets and criticizes some of the views presented in Sydney Shoemaker’s book, Physical Realization (Oxford University Press, 2007), on the topic of how mental properties are realized by physical properties, given that, on his view, human persons are not even token-identical with human bodies.
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  46. Andrew Melnyk (2006). Realization and the Formulation of Physicalism. Philosophical Studies 131 (1):127-55.
    Twenty years ago, Richard Boyd suggested that physicalism could be formulated by appeal to a notion of realization, with no appeal to the identity of the non-physical with the physical. In (Melnyk 2003), I developed this suggestion at length, on the basis of one particular account of realization. I now ask what happens if you try to formulate physicalism on the basis of other accounts of realization, accounts due to LePore and Loewer and to Shoemaker. Having explored two new formulations (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  47. Andrew Melnyk (2003). A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    A Physicalist Manifesto is the fullest treatment yet of the comprehensive physicalist view that, in some important sense, everything is physical. Andrew Melnyk argues that the view is best formulated by appeal to a carefully worked-out notion of realization, rather than supervenience; that, so formulated, physicalism must be importantly reductionist; that it need not repudiate causal and explanatory claims framed in non-physical language; and that it has the a posteriori epistemic status of a broad-scope scientific hypothesis. Two concluding chapters argue (...)
    $54.75 new   $60.83 direct from Amazon   $69.47 used   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  48. Andrew Melnyk (1994). Being a Physicalist: How and (More Importantly) Why. Philosophical Studies 74 (2):221-241.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  49. Marcin Miłkowski & Konrad Talmont-Kamiński (eds.) (2013). Regarding the Mind, Naturally: Naturalist Approaches to the Sciences of the Mental. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
    Naturalism is currently the most vibrantly developing approach to philosophy, with naturalised methodologies being applied across all the philosophical disciplines. One of the areas naturalism has been focussing upon is the mind, traditionally viewed as a topic hard to reconcile with the naturalistic worldview. A number of questions have been pursued in this context. What is the place of the mind in the world? How should we study the mind as a natural phenomenon? What is the significance of cognitive science (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  50. Kevin Morris (forthcoming). On Two Arguments for Subset Inheritance. Philosophical Studies.
    A physicalist holds, in part, that what properties are instantiated depends on what physical properties are instantiated; a physicalist thinks that mental properties, for example, are instantiated in virtue of the instantiation of physical “realizer” properties. One issue that arises in this context concerns the relationship between the “causal powers” of instances of physical properties and instances of dependent properties, properties that are instantiated in virtue of the instantiation of physical properties. After explaining the significance of this issue, I evaluate (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  51. Kevin Morris (2011). Subset Realization, Parthood, and Causal Overdetermination. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (3):363-379.
    Defenders of the subset view of realization have claimed that we can resolve well-known worries about mental-physical causal overdetermination by holding that mental properties are subset realized by physical properties, that instances of subset realized properties are parts of physical realizers, and that part-whole overdetermination is unproblematic. I challenge the claim that the overdetermination generated by the subset view can be legitimated by appealing to more mundane part-whole overdetermination. I conclude that the subset view does not provide a unique solution (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  52. Kevin Morris (2011). Subset Realization and Physical Identification. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (2):317-335.
    According to a prominent line of thought, we can be physicalists, but not reductive physicalists, by holding that mental and other ‘higher-level’ or ‘nonbasic’ properties — properties that are not obviously physical properties — are all physically realized. Spelling this out requires an account of realization, an account of what it is for one property to realize another. And while several accounts of realization have been advanced in recent years,1 my interest here is in the ‘subset view,’ which has often (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  53. Kevin Morris (2010). Guidelines for Theorizing About Realization. Southern Journal of Philosophy 48 (4):393-416.
    Realization can be roughly understood as a kind of role-playing, a relationship between a property that plays a role and a property characterized by that role. This rough sketch previously received only moderate elaboration; recently, however, several substantive theories of realization have been proposed. But are there any general constraints on a theory of realization? What is a theory of realization supposed to accomplish? I first argue that a view of realization is viable, in part, to the extent that physical (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  54. David Papineau (1993). Philosophical Naturalism. Blackwell.
    $59.99 used   $285.44 new   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  55. Derk Pereboom & Hilary Kornblith (1991). The Metaphysics of Irreducibility. Philosophical Studies 63 (August):125-45.
    During the 'sixties and 'seventies, Hilary Putnam, Jerry Fodor, and Richard Boyd, among others, developed a type of materialism that eschews reductionist claims.1 In this view, explana- tions, natural kinds, and properties in psychology do not reduce to counterparts in more basic sciences, such as neurophysiology or physics. Nevertheless, all token psychological entities-- states, processes, and faculties--are wholly constituted of physical entities, ultimately out of entities over which microphysics quantifies. This view quickly became the standard position in philosophy of mind, (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  56. Jeffrey Stephen Poland (1994). Physicalism, the Philosophical Foundations. Oxford University Press.
    Physicalism is a program for building a unified system of knowledge about the world on the basis of the view that everything is a manifestation of the physical aspects of existence. Jeffrey Poland presents a systematic and comprehensive exploration of the philosophical foundations of this program. He investigates the core ideas, motivating values, and presuppositions of physicalism; the constraints upon an adequate formulation of physicalist doctrine; the epistemological and modal status, the scope, and the methodological roles of physicalist principles. He (...)
    $15.50 used   $91.77 new   $97.56 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  57. Thomas Polger (2004). Natural Minds. MIT Press.
    In Natural Minds Thomas Polger advocates, and defends, the philosophical theory that mind equals brain—that sensations are brain processes—and in doing so brings the mind-brain identity theory back into the philosophical debate about consciousness. The version of identity theory that Polger advocates holds that conscious processes, events, states, or properties are type- identical to biological processes, events, states, or properties— a "tough-minded" account that maintains that minds are necessarily indentical to brains, a position held by few current identity theorists. Polger's (...)
    $1.92 used   $15.47 new   $40.00 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  58. Thomas W. Polger, Mechanisms and Explanatory Realization Relations.
    My topic is the confluence of two recently active philosophical research programs. One research program concerns the metaphysics of realization. Within the literature on realization there is substantial disagreement about even the general outlines of a theory. Occasionally it seems that the only common ground is that realization is a dependence relation that sometimes or always relates entities that figure in different explanatory schema, such as those of the special sciences and those of more fundamental sciences. The other research program (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  59. Thomas W. Polger (2013). Realization and Multiple Realization, Chicken and Egg. European Journal of Philosophy 21 (1).
    A common view is that the truth of multiple realization—e.g., about psychological states—entails the truth of functionalism. This is supposed to follow because what is multiply realized is eo ipso realized. I argue that view is mistaken by demonstrating how it misrepresents arguments from multiple realization. In particular, it undermines the empirical component of the arguments, and renders the multiplicity of the realization irrelevant. I suggest an alternative reading of multiple realizability arguments, particularly in philosophy of psychology. And I explain (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (6 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  60. Thomas W. Polger (2007). Realization and the Metaphysics of Mind. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2):233 – 259.
    According to the received view in philosophy of mind, mental states or properties are _realized_ by brain states or properties but are not identical to them. This view is often called _realization_ _physicalism_. Carl Gillett has recently defended a detailed formulation of the realization relation. However, Gillett’s formulation cannot be the relation that realization physicalists have in mind. I argue that Gillett’s “dimensioned” view of realization fails to apply to a textbook case of realization. I also argue Gillett counts as (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (9 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  61. Thomas W. Polger (2004). Neural Machinery and Realization. Philosophy of Science 71 (5):997-1006.
    The view that the relationship between minds and brains can be thought of on the model of software and hardware is pervasive. The most common versions of the view, known as functionalism in philosophy of mind, hold that minds are realized by brains.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (7 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  62. Thomas W. Polger & Lawrence Shapiro (2008). Understanding the Dimensions of Realization. Journal of Philosophy 105 (4):213-222.
    Carl Gillett has defended what he calls the “dimensioned” view of the realization relation, which he contrasts with the traditional “flat” view of realization (2003, 2007; see also Gillett 2002). Intuitively, the dimensioned approach characterizes realization in terms of composition whereas the flat approach views realization in terms of occupiers of functional roles. Elsewhere we have argued that the general view of realization and multiple realization that Gillett advances is not able to discharge the theoretical duties of those relations (Shapiro (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  63. Hilary Putnam (1975). Mind, Language, and Reality. Cambridge University Press.
    Professor Hilary Putnam has been one of the most influential and sharply original of recent American philosophers in a whole range of fields. His most important published work is collected here, together with several new and substantial studies, in two volumes. The first deals with the philosophy of mathematics and of science and the nature of philosophical and scientific enquiry; the second deals with the philosophy of language and mind. Volume one is now issued in a new edition, including an (...)
    $7.65 used   $46.98 new   $67.47 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  64. Hilary Putnam (1960). Minds and Machines. In Sidney Hook (ed.), Dimensions of Mind. New York University Press.
    Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  65. Matthias Scheutz (1999). When Physical Systems Realize Functions. Minds and Machines 9 (2):161-196.
    After briefly discussing the relevance of the notions computation and implementation for cognitive science, I summarize some of the problems that have been found in their most common interpretations. In particular, I argue that standard notions of computation together with a state-to-state correspondence view of implementation cannot overcome difficulties posed by Putnam's Realization Theorem and that, therefore, a different approach to implementation is required. The notion realization of a function, developed out of physical theories, is then introduced as a replacement (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (6 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  66. Sydney Shoemaker (2011). Realization, Powers and Property Identity. The Monist 91 (1):3-18.
    This paper is about the relation between two metaphysical topics: the nature of properties, and way the instantiation of a property is sometimes “realized in” something more fundamental. It is partly an attempt to develop further, but also to correct, my earlier treatments of these topics. In my published work on realization, including my book Physical Realization, I was at pains to insist that acceptance of my view about this does not commit one to the causal theory of properties I (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  67. Sydney Shoemaker (2007). Physical Realization. Oxford University Press.
    In Physical Realization, Sydney Shoemaker considers the question of how physicalism can be true: how can all facts about the world, including mental ones, be ...
    $8.48 new   $9.50 used   $24.00 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  68. Sydney Shoemaker (2003). Realization, Micro-Realization, and Coincidence. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (1):1-23.
    Let thin properties be properties shared by coincident entities, e.g., a person and her body, and thick properties ones that are not shared. Thick properties entail sortal properties, e.g., being a person, and the associated persistence conditions. On the first account of realization defined here, the realized property and its realizers will belong to the same individual. This restricts the physical realizers of mental properties, which are thick, to thick physical properties. We also need a sense in which mental properties (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (7 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  69. Sydney Shoemaker (2001). Realization and Mental Causation. In Carl Gillett & Barry M. Loewer (eds.), Physicalism and its Discontents. Cambridge University Press.
    A common conception of what it is for one property to “realize” another suggests that it is the realizer property that does the causal work, and that the realized property is epiphenomenal. The same conception underlies George Bealer’s argument that functionalism leads to the absurd conclusion that what we take to be self-ascriptions of a mental state are really self-ascriptions of “first-order” properties that realize that state. This paper argues for a different concept of realization. A property realizes another if (...)
    $16.50 used   $34.00 new   $102.77 direct from Amazon   (collection)   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  70. Jacqueline A. Sullivan (2010). Realization, Explanation and the Mind-Body Relation Editor's Introduction. Synthese 177 (2):151-164.
    This volume brings together a number of perspectives on the nature of realization explanation and experimentation in the ‘special’ and biological sciences as well as the related issues of psychoneural reduction and cognitive extension. The first two papers in the volume may be regarded as offering direct responses to the questions: (1) What model of realization is appropriate for understanding the metaphysics of science? and (2) What kind of philosophical work is such a model ultimately supposed to do?
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  71. Brandon N. Towl, The Subset View of Realization: Five Problems.
    The Subset View of realization, though it has some attractive advantages, also has several problems. In particular, there are five main problems that have emerged in the literature: Double-Counting, The Part/Whole Problem, The “No Addition of Being” Problem, The Problem of Projectibility, and the Problem of Spurious Kinds. Each is reviewed here, along with solutions (or partial solutions) to them. Taking these problems seriously constrains the form that a Subset view can take, and thus limits the kinds of relations that (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  72. Agustín Vicente (2001). Realization, Determination and Mental Causation. Theoria 16 (40):77-94.
    The by now famous exclusion problem for mental causation admits only one possible solution, as far as I can see, namely: that mental and physical properties are linked by a vertical relation. In this paper, starting from what I take to be sensible premises about properties, I will be visiting some general relations between them, in order to see whether, first, it is true that some vertical relation, other than identity, makes different sorts of causation compatible and second, whether physical (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  73. Sven Walter (forthcoming). Taking Realization Seriously: No Cure for Epiphobia. Philosophical Studies.
    The realization relation that allegedly holds between mental and physical properties plays a crucial role for so-called non-reductive physicalism because it is supposed to secure both the ontological autonomy of mental properties and, despite their irreducibility, their ability to make a causal difference to the course of the causally closed physical world. For a long time however, the nature of realization has largely been ignored in the philosophy of mind until a couple of years ago authors like Carl Gillett, Derk (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  74. Jessica M. Wilson, No Work for a Theory of Grounding.
    ***NOTE: April 2013 version contains discussion of whether Grounding is needed to fix direction of priority between non-fundamental goings-on.*** It has recently been suggested that a distinctive relation or relations of "Grounding" is ultimately at issue in contexts where some goings-on are claimed to, e.g., hold "in virtue of"" or be "less fundamental than", "metaphysically dependent on", or "nothing over and above" some others (see Fine 2001, Schaffer 2009, and Rosen 2010). Grounding is supposed to do good work (better than (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  75. Jessica M. Wilson (2011). Non-Reductive Realization and the Powers-Based Subset Strategy. The Monist (Issue on Powers) 94 (1):121-154.
    I argue that an adequate account of non-reductive realization must guarantee satisfaction of a certain condition on the token causal powers associated with (instances of) realized and realizing entities---namely, what I call the 'Subset Condition on Causal Powers' (first introduced in Wilson 1999). In terms of states, the condition requires that the token powers had by a realized state on a given occasion be a proper subset of the token powers had by the state that realizes it on that occasion. (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (2 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  76. Jessica M. Wilson (2009). Determination, Realization and Mental Causation. Philosophical Studies 145 (1):149 - 169.
    How can mental properties bring about physical effects, as they seem to do, given that the physical realizers of the mental goings-on are already sufficient to cause these effects? This question gives rise to the problem of mental causation (MC) and its associated threats of causal overdetermination, mental causal exclusion, and mental causal irrelevance. Some (e.g., Cynthia and Graham Macdonald, and Stephen Yablo) have suggested that understanding mental-physical realization in terms of the determinable/determinate relation (henceforth, 'determination') provides the key to (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (3 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  77. Jessica M. Wilson (1999). How Superduper Does a Physicalist Supervenience Need to Be? Philosophical Quarterly 50 (194):33-52.
    Horgan claims that physicalism requires "superdupervenience" -- supervenience plus robust ontological explanation of the supervenient in terms of the base properties. I argue that Horgan's account fails to rule out physically unacceptable emergence. I rather suggest (in the earliest explicit presentation of the powers-based subset strategy) that this and other unacceptable possibilities may be ruled out by requiring that each individual causal power in the set associated with a given supervenient property be numerically identical with a causal power in the (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (10 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  78. Robert A. Wilson (2004). Realization: Metaphysics, Mind, and Science. Philosophy of Science 71 (5):985-996.
    For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  79. Robert A. Wilson (2004). Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences: Cognition. Cambridge University Press.
    Where does the mind begin and end? Robert Wilson establishes the foundations for the view that the mind extends beyond the boundary of the individual. He blends traditional philosophical analysis, cognitive science, and the history of psychology and the human sciences. Wilson then develops novel accounts of mental representation and consciousness, discussing a range of other issues, such as nativism and the idea of group minds. Boundaries of the Mind re-evaluates the place of the individual in the cognitive, biological and (...)
    $30.98 used   $74.13 new   $79.67 direct from Amazon   Amazon page
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  80. Robert A. Wilson (2001). Two Views of Realization. Philosophical Studies 104 (1):1-31.
    This paper examines the standard view of realization operative incontemporary philosophy of mind, and proposes an alternative, generalperspective on realization. The standard view can be expressed, insummary form, as the conjunction of two theses, the sufficiency thesis andthe constitutivity thesis. Physicalists of both reductionist and anti-reductionist persuasions share a conception of realization wherebyrealizations are determinative of the properties they realize and physically constitutive of the individuals with those properties. Centralto the alternative view that I explore here is the idea that (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  81. Chase B. Wrenn (2010). The Unreality of Realization. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (2):305-322.
    This paper argues against the _realization principle_, which reifies the realization relation between lower-level and higher-level properties. It begins with a review of some principles of naturalistic metaphysics. Then it criticizes some likely reasons for embracing the realization principle, and finally it argues against the principle directly. The most likely reasons for embracing the principle depend on the dubious assumption that special science theories cannot be true unless special science predicates designate properties. The principle itself turns out to be false (...)
    Remove from this list | Direct download (4 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
  82. Stephen Yablo (1992). Mental Causation. Philosophical Review 101 (2):245-280.
    Remove from this list | Direct download (5 more)  
     
    My bibliography  
     
    Export citation  
BibTeX / EndNote / RIS / etc
Export this page:
Restrictions




Viewing options


Open Category Editor
Off-campus access
Using PhilPapers from home?

Click here to configure this browser for off-campus access.

Monitor this page
Be alerted of all new items appearing on this page. Choose how you want to monitor it:

Email   RSS feed
About PhilPapers
Institute of Philosophy
School of Advanced Study
University of London
Centre for Consciousness
Australian National University

General Editors:
David Bourget (London)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)

Area Editors:
Anthony Beavers
David Bourget
Berit Brogaard
Margaret Cameron
David Chalmers
Gabriele Contessa
Rafael De Clercq
Catarina Dutilh Novaes
Pablo Gilabert
Hans Halvorson
Jonathan Ichikawa
Jonathan Kvanvig
Øystein Linnebo
JeeLoo Liu
Paul Livingston
Brandon Look
Michiru Nagatsu
Susana Nuccetelli
Gualtiero Piccinini
Darrell Rowbottom
Constantine Sandis
Jonathan Schaffer
Thomas Senor
Robin Smith
Robert Sparrow
Daniel Star
Jussi Suikkanen
Lynne Tirrell
John Simpson Wilkins

Other editors
Contact us
Learn more about PhilPapers





Applied ethicsEpistemologyHistory of Western PhilosophyMeta-ethicsMetaphysicsNormative ethics
Philosophy of biologyPhilosophy of languagePhilosophy of mindPhilosophy of religionScience Logic and MathematicsMore ...
Home | New books and articles | Bibliographies | Philosophy journals | Discussions | The Categorization Project | About PhilPapers | API | Contact us

Institute of Philosophy
School of Advanced Study
University of London 		Centre for Consciousness
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
This site uses Google Analytics (see our terms & conditions for details regarding the privacy implications).

Use of this site is subject to terms & conditions.
All rights reserved by David Bourget and David Chalmers

Page generated Sun May 19 18:00:07 2013 - Hash code: 4XqN1bgumO9NnmhgYgYWiw