Abstract
This paper argues that the non-reductive monist need not be concerned about the ‘problem’ of mental causation; one can accept both the irreducibility of mental properties to physical properties and the causal closure of the physical. More precisely, it is argued that instances of mental properties can be causally efficacious, and that there is no special barrier to seeing mental properties whose instances are causally efficacious as being causally relevant to the effects they help to bring about. It is then shown that the causal relevance of mental properties is consistent with there being no downward causation, so the dilemma of ‘epiphenomenalism or reduction’ can be avoided. Non-reductive monism lives on as a viable position in the philosophy of mind.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Non-reductive physicalism is a direct descendant of Donald Davidson’s anomalous monism (Davidson 1980). The differences are small but significant: non-reductive physicalsim is happy to talk in terms of properties (and so can embrace Kim-type structured events), whereas Davidson preferred to couch his position in terms of predicates (and adopted unstructured events). In addition non-reductive physicalism need not be committed to the non-lawlike nature of the mental.
I am using the first-person plural because my work in this area has involved extensive collaboration with Cynthia Macdonald.
The first formulation of this solution was in Macdonald and Macdonald (1986). Here we revisit it in the light of subsequent discussions and (we think) misguided criticisms.
Some have preferred to approach these issues using an ontology embracing tropes. We have argued against this in ‘The Metaphysics of Mental Causation’ (Macdonald and Macdonald 2006), so would not address that approach here.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of possible alternatives, just the more obvious ones.
For the metaphysical technicalities concerning the structured view of events see Macdonald and Macdonald (2006) and the references cited therein.
An alternative is to claim that only the most determinate property is instanced, meaning that no determinables are ever instanced. Arguing against this view would take another paper, but a suspicion is that those opting for this view do so because they do not want to multiply instances beyond necessity. On the account being offered no such multiplication is being considered, so that motivation disappears.
This is argued for by Eric Funkhouser in his interesting ‘The Determinable-Determinate Relation’ (Funkhouser 2006).
Ann Whittle (Whittle 2007) provides a ‘modest’ defence of the co-instantiation thesis whilst disagreeing with the application of it defended later in this paper. We do not have space here to respond to her criticisms of our view, but see fn. 14.
Parts of this section overlap with parts of Sect. 5 in Macdonald and Macdonald (2006). There we concentrate more on Hitchcock’s account of causation.
Here P, Q are properties, Pi, Qi are property instances, and c and e are events.
‘Suitably transparent’ because not only can events be picked out using non-explanatory descriptions, but so can properties, even where the properties so picked out are precisely those involved in the relevant co-variation.
It is the existence of such a relation between the mental properties of (physical and mental) events that ensures that Whittle’s objection concerning the existence, or lack thereof, of counterfactuals linking the property instances is irrelevant. The presence of the G-type relation ensures (enough) ‘counterfactuality.’ See Whittle (2007, p. 73).
We have changed Kim’s “P*” to “P2” for consistency with what has gone before.
A section of this argument is repeated in “Beyond Program Explanation” (Macdonald and Macdonald 2007), but there we also discuss Kim’s use of the ‘causal inheritance’ principle.
Our use of scare quotes around key terms here in this paragraph is intended to mark the equivocation we detect in the argument between talk of property-instances and causal efficacy, and talk of properties and causal relevance.
References
Davidson, D. (1980). Mental events. In D. Davidson (Ed.), Actions and events. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Funkhouser, E. (2006). The determinable-determinate relation. Noûs, 40, 548–569.
Hitchcock, C. (2001). A tale of two effects. The Philosophical Review, 110, 361–396.
Kim, J. (1999). Making sense of emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, 3–36.
Kim, J. (2003). Blocking causal drainage and other maintenance chores with mental causation. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 67, 151–176.
Kim, J. (2005). Physicalism, or something near enough. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Macdonald, G., & Macdonald, C. (1986). Mental causes and the explanation of action. Philosophical Quarterly, 36, 145–158.
Macdonald, G., & Macdonald, C. (1995). How to be psychologically relevant. In C. Macdonald, & G. Macdonald (Eds.), Philosophy of psychology: Debates on psychological explanation (pp. 60–77). Oxford: Blackwell.
Macdonald, G., & Macdonald, C. (2006). The metaphysics of mental causation. The Journal of Philosophy, 103, 539–576.
Macdonald, G., & Macdonald, C. (2007). Beyond program explanation. In G. Brennan, R. Goodin, F. Jackson, & M. Smith (Eds.), Common minds: Themes from the philosophy of Philip Pettit (pp. 1–27). New York: Oxford.
Whittle, A. (2007). The co-instantiation thesis. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 85, 61–79.
Woodward, J. (2000). Explanation and invariance in the special sciences. British Journal for Philosophy of Science, 51, 197–254.
Woodward, J. (2003). Making things happen. New York: Oxford University Press.
Yablo, S. (1992). Mental causation. Philosophical Review, 101, 254–280.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Fund for support in the writing of this article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Macdonald, G. Emergence and Causal Powers. Erkenn 67, 239–253 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9063-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9063-0