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- Markus E. Schlosser (2006). Causal Exclusion and Overdetermination. In E. Di Nucci & J. McHugh (eds.), Content, Consciousness and Perception. Cambridge Scholars Press.This paper is about the causal exclusion argument against non-reductive physicalism. Many philosophers think that this argument poses a serious problem for non-reductive theories of the mind — some think that it is decisive against them. In the first part I will outline non-reductive physicalism and the exclusion argument. Then I will distinguish between three versions of the argument that address three different versions of non-reductive physicalism. According to the first, the relation between mental and physical events is token-identity. According to the second, mental events are distinct from physical events, but the latter metaphysically include and determine the former. And on the third version, mental and physical events are entirely distinct. I will argue that the causal exclusion argument is not decisive against non-reductive physicalism in any of the three versions. According to non-reductive physicalism, mental events are dependent on physical events. Causal exclusion and overdetermination, however, requires distinct and independent causes. I will argue that the burden of proof lies with the opponents of non-reductive physicalism, who have to explain how metaphysically dependent events can possibly overdetermine an effect or exclude each other from being causally efficacious.Reading list | Discuss | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... A well-known ``overdetermination''argument aims to show that the possibility of mental causes of physical events in a causally closed physical world and the possibility of causally relevant mental properties are both problematic. In the first part of this paper, I extend an identity reply that has been given to the first problem to a property-instance account of causal relata. In the second, I argue that mental types are composed of physical types and, as a consequence, both mental and physical types may be causally relevant with respect to the same physical effect, contrary to the overdetermination argument. In further sections, I argue that mental types have causal powers, consider some objections and reject an alternative version of part-whole physicalism. Throughout I assume that causal relata are tropes and property types are classes of tropes.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: kluweronline.com springerlink.com ingentaconnect.com jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: kluweronline.com springerlink.com ingentaconnect.com jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Jaegwon Kim’s causal exclusion argument says that if all physical effects have sufficient physical causes, and no physical effects are caused twice over by distinct physical and mental causes, there cannot be any irreducible mental causes. In addition, Kim has argued that the nonreductive physicalist must give up completeness, and embrace the possibility of downward causation. This paper argues first that this extra argument relies on a principle of property individuation, which the nonreductive physicalist need not accept, and second that once we get clear on overdetermination, there is a way to reject the exclusion principle upon which the causal exclusion argument depends, but third that this should not lead to the belief that mental causation is easily accounted for in terms of counterfactual dependencies.
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| | Other links: springerlink.com ingentaconnect.com jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... I argue that the completeness of physics is composed of two distinct claims. The first is the commonly made claim that, roughly, every physical event is completely causally determined by physical events. The second has rarely, if ever, been explicitly stated in the literature and is the claim that microphysics provides a complete inventory of the fundamental categories that constitute both the causal features and intrinsic nature of all the events that causally affect the physical universe. After showing that these claims are distinct, I argue that they can be used to solve a difficulty with existing responses to the exclusion problem—namely, that these existing responses also undermine the powerful causal argument for physicalism. Recognizing that there are two kinds of completeness opens up room for the nonreductive physicalist to solve the exclusion problem while also endorsing a modified, cogent causal argument for a kind of physicalism compatible with her position.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: interscience.wiley.com blackwell-synergy.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: interscience.wiley.com blackwell-synergy.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... In this paper I discuss a famous argument for physicalism – which some authors indeed regard as the only argument for it – the overdetermination argument. In fact it is an argument that does not establish that all the entities in the world are physical, but that all those events that enter into causal transactions with the physical world are physical. As mental events seem to cause changes in the physical world, the mind is one of those things that fall within the scope of the argument. Here I analyze one response to the overdetermination argument that has acquired some popularity lately, and which consists in saying that what mental events cause are not physical effects. I try to show that recent attempts to develop this response are not successful, but that there may be a coherent way of doing so. I also try to show that there seems to be a philosophical niche in which this way might fit.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: springerlink.com kluweronline.com ingentaconnect.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: springerlink.com kluweronline.com ingentaconnect.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... In this paper I develop a novel response to the exclusion problem. I argue that the nature of the events in the causally complete physical domain raises the “problem of many causes”: there will typically be countless simultaneous low-level physical events in that domain that are causally sufficient for any given high-level physical event (like a window breaking or an arm raising). This shows that even reductive physicalists must admit that the version of the exclusion principle used to pose the exclusion problem against non-reductive physicalism is too strong. The burden is on proponents of the exclusion problem to provide a reason to think that any qualifications placed on the exclusion principle will solve the problem of many causes while ruling out causation by irreducible mental events.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... The exclusion problem is held to show that mental and physical events are identical by claiming that the denial of this identity is incompatible with the causal completeness of physics and the occurrence of mental causation. The problem relies for its motivation on the claim that overdetermination of physical effects by mental and physical causes is objectionable for a variety of reasons. In this paper, I consider four different definitions of ?overdetermination? and argue that, on each, overdetermination in all cases of mental causation either does not occur or is unobjectionable, even when mental and physical events are non-identical. I therefore conclude that the exclusion problem cannot be used as a reason to accept that mental and physical events are identical unless some other definition of ?overdetermination? is provided.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: informaworld.com tandf.informaworld.com tandfonline.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: informaworld.com tandf.informaworld.com tandfonline.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Consider the following dilemma for non-reductive physicalism. If mental events cause physical events, they merely overdetermine their effects, given the causal closure of the physical. And if mental events cause only other mental events, they do not make the kind of difference we want them to. This dilemma can be avoided once the dichotomy between physical and mental events is dropped. Mental events make a real difference if they cause actions. But actions, I will argue, are neither mental nor physical events. Actions are realized by physical events, but they are not type-identical with them. This gives us non-reductive physicalism without downward causation. The tenability of such a view has been questioned. Jaegwon Kim, in particular, has argued that every version of non-reductive physicalism is committed to downward causation. But the nature action, I will argue, allows us to avoid this commitment.
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| | Scholar | More options ... Given some reasonable assumptions concerning the nature of mental causation, non-reductive physicalism faces the following dilemma. If mental events cause physical events, they merely overdetermine their effects (given the causal closure of the physical). If mental events cause only other mental events, they do not make the kind of difference we want them to. This dilemma can be avoided if we drop the dichotomy between physical and mental events. Mental events make a real difference if they cause actions. But actions are neither mental nor physical events. They are realized by physical events, but they are not type-identical with them. This gives us non-reductive physicalism without downward causation. The tenability of this view has been questioned. Jaegwon Kim, in particular, has argued that non-reductive physicalism is committed to downward causation. Appealing to the nature of actions, I will argue that this commitment can be avoided.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... The first part of this paper presents an argument showing that the currently most highly acclaimed interventionist theory of causation, i.e. the one advanced by Woodward, excludes supervening macro properties from having a causal influence on effects of their micro supervenience bases. Moreover, this interventionist exclusion argument is demonstrated to rest on weaker premises than classical exclusion arguments. The second part then discusses a weakening of interventionism that Woodward suggests. This weakened version of interventionism turns out either to be inapplicable to cases of downward causation involving supervening macro properties or to render corresponding causal claims meaningless. In sum, the paper argues that, contrary to what many non-reductive physicalists claim, interventionism does not render non-reductive physicalism immune to the problem of causal exclusion.
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| | Other links: uni-konstanz.de informaworld.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Discussion of Markus E. Schlosser, Causal exclusion and overdetermination
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