Psychophysical Reduction

إن الحديث عن مدرسة المستقبل، في زمن استحقاقات القرن 21 ورهانات العولمة، ليس حديثا عن نسق تربوي معزول عن البناء الاجتماعي العام، وإنما حديث في العمق عن مؤسسة تتفاعل بنيويا وتتكامل وظيفيا مع مختلف الأنساق السوسيواقتصادية والمهنية والثقافية والسياسية... ولن يكون هذا الحديث مفيدا وإجرائيا، في اعتقادنا، إن هو لم يستحضر التطور الحاصل في أدوار ووظائف وآليات اشتغال المدرسة، عبر الوقوف على سيرورات التحولات التي طالت وظائف وأدوار المدرسة في الماضي والحاضر. وانتقلت هذه الوظائف من التلقين والشحن بالمعارف إلى وظائف (...) أكثر تنوعا ودينامية، تنخرط في محاولات إيجاد حلول ناجعة لتحديات إكساب التلميذ مناهج تحصيل المعرفة، وتعزيز مهاراته الحياتية، وتوسيع خبراته، وتطوير جاهزيته للشغل وتحقيق الذات والعيش المشترك مع الآخر، من أجل مجابهة مصاعب الحياة في ظل متطلبات العولمة. ولا يخفى على المتتبع المهتم الأهمية البيداغوجية والتربوية والسياسية لممارسة تمرين السفر في المستقبل بحثا عن ملامح ومواصفات المدرسة الجديرة بهذا المستقبل، وذلك باعتباره تمرين يطلق العنان لملكات التخيل والتأمل والاستشراف والتفكير بمنطق البدائل والسيناريوهات. إن انخراط في تمرين من هذا القبيل، هو انخراط في التخطيط لمستقبل التربية انطلاقا من معطيات الحاضر، هذا المستقبل الذي تعددت بشأنه المنظورات والآراء والأبحاث التي تناولت بالدراسة والتحليل ملامح وأسس وأدوار مدرسة المستقبل، حيث غالبا ما تأتي هذه الآراء مركزة على بعض العناصر التي تهم المقاربة أو النموذج البيداغوجي أو الكتاب المدرسي أو طرق التقييم أو استراتيجيات التعلم أو كفايات المدرس... أو تكون منحازة لبعض الأدوار على حساب أخرى. (shrink)

I provide an account of the physical appropriate to the task of the physicalist while remaining faithful to the usage of “physical” natural to physicists. Physicalism is the thesis that everything in the world is physical, or reducible to the physical. I presuppose that some version of this position is a live epistemic possibility. The physicalist is confronted with Hempel’s dilemma: that physicalism is either false or contentless. The proposed account of the physical avoids both horns and generalizes a recent (...) proposal by Vicente (2011). My account defines physicalism as the thesis that there are no objects that cannot be described by physical quantities. A dimensional account of physical quantities is given: quantities are determined by measurement procedures. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a two-pronged argument devoted to defending the type-identity theory of mind against the argument presented by Kripke in _Naming and Necessity_. In the first part, the interpersonal case, I show that since it is not possible to establish the metaphysical conditions for phenomenal identity, it is not possible to argue that there can be physical differences between two subjects despite their phenomenal identity. In the second part, the intrapersonal case, I consider the possibility of imagining (...) one and the same individual having the same phenomenal state while counterfactually being in very different physical states. I argue that this case should respect Kripke’s implicit theory of personal identity—but this proves to be a very difficult task to accomplish, thus preventing the argument from getting off the ground. Therefore, I maintain, that the type-identity theory is still the better option to solve the mind–body problem. (shrink)

The standard event-causal theory of action says that an intentional action is caused in the right way by the right mental states. This view requires reductionism about agency. The causal role of the agent must be nothing over and above the causal contribution of the relevant mental event-causal processes. But commonsense finds this reductive solution to the “agent-mind problem”, the problem of explaining the relationship between agents and the mind, incredible. Where did the agent go? This paper suggests that this (...) challenge against event-causal reductionism is importantly related to debates about fundamentality. It also suggests that extant event-causal answers to the agent-mind problem, ones that suggest that part of an agent’s mind can stand proxy for the agent herself, fail against the challenge. It sketches an alternative reductive view that appeals to entity grounding. This view resolves the commonsense challenge and promises to be theoretically fruitful with respect to other longstanding problems with the event-casual view. The paper concludes with a burden-shifting argument against emergentist agent-causal theories and non-reductive event-causal theories of agency. (shrink)

It is hard to believe that colors, sounds, tastes and feelings, the essential ingredients of the world as we know it, never existed in the universe until complex nervous systems appeared. This paper explores the idea that phenomenal experiences made of sensible qualities such as colors and sounds exist physically as the “clothing” of matter and are real public appearances that may be experienced by any locally situated subject, shared by multiple such subjects, or may even exist unperceived. In this (...) panqualityist worldview our awareness goes right up against the physical world that we can directly perceive. Material objects really have colors that are ubiquitous and existed in nature before brains evolved. The evolution of the brain did not create new physics, but employed the same ubiquitous simple physical laws that generate colors in external objects to generate colors internally. I theorize that there are different “matter to qualia” bridging laws for each sense modality and speculate as to what they may look like. (shrink)

The metaphor proves reality, and observation, all of it (the human mind) (and, therefore, a universal mind), is unified, made possible, and controlled, by the conservation of a circle. Metaphorically 'speaking'…pi in mathematics is the technical term for the word 'mind' (any context): the stairway to heaven (and-or hell)… (See, Also: Magical Thinking).

What should the Buddhist attitude be to rebirth if it is believed to be inconsistent with current science? This chapter critically engages forms of Buddhist agnosticism that adopt a position of uncertainty about rebirth but nevertheless recommend ‘behaving as if’ it were true. What does it mean to behave as if rebirth were true, and are Buddhist agnostics justified in adopting this position? This chapter engages this question in dialogue with Mark Siderits’ reductionist analysis of the Buddhist doctrine of the (...) two truths, conventional and ultimate. Richard Hayes (1998) characterises talk of rebirth as a useful fiction. Siderits characterises talk of persons as a useful fiction and explains and justifies statements that involve it as conventionally true despite persons not featuring in our final or ultimate ontology. Does rebirth satisfy the same criteria to count as conventionally true, and does thinking of it in these terms help explain and justify what it might mean to behave as if rebirth were true? This chapter will defend a conditional yes to these questions. In the process, it will clarify what is distinctive about the traditional Buddhist approach to rebirth, provide an analysis of how the concept of rebirth might relate to practical outcomes, and address some limitations of this approach. (shrink)

Mind does not operate using sequence (also known, to ‘man,’ as ‘time’). Think: philosophical, and physical, fusion.

The problem presented in this essay touches upon an issue of reductionism in philosophy of mind, represented by various forms of physicalism. -/- Preprint: Dies ist ein Vorabdruck des folgenden Beitrages: Michał Pawłowski, "True or Rational A Problem for a Mind-Body Reductionist", veröffentlicht in "Wider den Reduktionismus", herausgegeben von Oliver Passon und Christoph Benzmüller, 2021, Springer Spektrum Berlin, Heidelberg, 2021 , vervielfältigt mit Genehmigung von Springer Spektrum Berlin, Heidelberg, 2021. Die finale authentifizierte Version ist online verfügbar unter: (see link below).

This article is, in particular, a discussion of the article by Jaegwon, Kim: "Non-reductionist physicalism and its problem with mental causation". In general, we turn to classic texts of phenomenology to refute any (non) reductionist physical theory.

The paper discusses definitions of and arguments for non-reductive physicalism (and argues that the term is a mis-nomer).

In “A Causal Argument for Physicalism”, Lei Zhong presents an argument for physicalism in general, that is, for the disjunction of reductive physicalism and non-reductive physicalism. Zhong’s argument attempts to show that mental properties are physically acceptable, that is, physical in a wide sense. The crucial assumption of the argument is that physically acceptable effects do not have both sufficient causes that are physically acceptable and simultaneous sufficient causes that are not physically acceptable. I argue that Zhong’s argument is invalid, (...) because the mental can be causally relevant to physically acceptable effects while being neither physically acceptable nor causally sufficient for these effects. I present an alternative argument in the spirit of Zhong’s argument that omits the notion of sufficient causation. I argue that non-physicalists can also resist the alternative argument if they fine-tune their metaphysics of mind. (shrink)

With a few exceptions, F.H. Bradley has become a forgotten figure in the history of philosophy. I argue that Bradley’s thoughts on relations are at least relevant to assessing the status of nonreductive physicalism as a comprehensive metaphysic and, moreover, that they can be seen to raise some nontrivial challenges to nonreductive physicalism so understood. In pursuing this line of thought, I consider two of Bradley’s regresses in Appearance and Reality – the better-known “chain” regress and the lesser known “fission” (...) regress – and explain their relevance to nonreductive physicalism. (shrink)

The paper replies to Matthew Rellihan’s recent criticism of Thomas Kroedel’s simple argument for downward causation. Rellihan argues that the simple argument equivocates between two notions of realizers of mental properties, namely total realizers and core realizers. According to Rellihan, one premise of the argument is false on each disambiguation. In response, this paper argues that the version of the argument in terms of total realizers is sound after all if we evaluate counterfactual conditionals about the non-occurrence of total realizers (...) correctly. (shrink)

According to the subset view of realization, a property realizes another if the causal powers of the latter are a subset of those of the former. Against this view, some authors (in particular, Kevin Morris and Paul Audi) have argued that it has an untenable consequence that realizing properties are less fundamental than the properties they realize, because the subset view characterizes realized properties as parts (subsets) of their realizers whereas it is generally true that a part is prior to (...) its whole. This paper defends the subset view from this “part-whole” objection, by arguing that if we compare individual powers of realizer and realizee with particular attention to their manifestation conditions, it turns out that each power of a realizee is grounded in some power of its realizer. This grounding relation between powers, I shall argue, allows subset theorists to explain why a realizer is more fundamental than its realizee, even while having the latter as a part. (shrink)

This chapter aims to develop an argument in support of the basic mentality thesis. A “counting” argument is constructed in the chapter that poses a problem for the identity thesis. Then, the chapter extends the “counting” argument in a way that exposes a problem for the dependence (mind grounded in physical) thesis. The basic strategy of a counting argument is to show that there is a greater quantity of members of the one category than of some other. To illustrate, the (...) chapter considers the categories integers and reals. These categories both have infinitely many members. To further illustrate the categorical difference between the physical and nonphysical, it also considers building a Lego tower. The divide between physical and nonphysical properties involves much more than a mere difference with respect to complexity of psychological content. Next, the chapter justifies the basic mentality thesis by considering the main arguments for standard physicalism (reductive or nonreductive). (shrink)

This chapter presents a partial argument for a Christian version of nonreductive physicalism. Its structure is based on the view that a Christian anthropology at a minimum must be: consonant with Scripture and at least a part of the Christian tradition; not in conflict with widely accepted science, and preferably supported by science; and internally coherent. The argument of the chapter, then, intentionally draws from biblical studies and theology, and from (a bit of) cognitive neuroscience. The impact of cognitive neuroscience (...) on current theories of human nature can be summarized roughly as follows: all of the human capacities once attributed to the mind or soul are being fruitfully studied as brain processes. Both theological and scientific developments are “resonant” with nonreductive physicalism. Finally, the chapter discusses resources for showing that nonreductive physicalism is a more coherent philosophical position than reductive physicalism. (shrink)

Kim’s causal exclusion argument purports to demonstrate that the non-reductive physicalist must treat mental properties (and macro-level properties in general) as causally inert. A number of authors have attempted to resist Kim’s conclusion by utilizing the conceptual resources of Woodward’s interventionist conception of causation. The viability of these responses has been challenged by Gebharter, who argues that the causal exclusion argument is vindicated by the theory of causal Bayesian networks (CBNs). Since the interventionist conception of causation relies crucially on CBNs (...) for its foundations, Gebharter’s argument appears to cast significant doubt on interventionism’s anti-reductionist credentials. In the present article, we both (1) demonstrate that Gebharter’s CBN-theoretic formulation of the exclusion argument relies on some unmotivated and philosophically significant assumptions (especially regarding the relationship between CBNs and the metaphysics of causal relevance), and (2) use Bayesian networks to develop a general theory of causal inference for multi-level systems that can serve as the foundation for an anti-reductionist interventionist account of causation.1. (shrink)

The PhD dissertation defended by Ion Petrovici in 1905 triggered criticism related to its sources, method and aim. Although the author made use of the term ‘psychophysical parallelism’ in the title – the critics reproached –, the work had nothing to do with scientific psychology. The following paper discusses the distinction between psychophysical parallelism as description and psychophysical parallelism as solution to the mind–body problem. Only the former can be considered a proper scien­tific approach.

Jaegwon Kim argued that nonreductive physicalism faces the “exclusion problem” for higher-level causation, mental causation in particular. Roughly, the charge is that given the presumptive ubiquity of physical causation, there cannot be irreducible mental causes for physical effects. Since there are mental causes, Kim concluded that nonreductive physicalism should be rejected in favor of a more reductionist alternative according to which mental causes are just physical causes differently described. But why should mental causes be “excluded” in this way? Unfortunately, Kim (...) had less to say about this than one might expect. After reviewing some of Kim’s proposals, I suggest that the exclusion problem should be premised on nothing more or less than Occamist, simplicity-based considerations. I apply this conception of the exclusion problem to some prominent responses to Kim’s critique of nonreductive physicalism and argue that this conception mandates reconsidering the success of these responses. (shrink)

The argument from reason states that if naturalism is true, then our beliefs are caused by physical processes rather than being causally based in their reasons, so our beliefs are not knowledge—including the belief in naturalism itself. Recent critics of the argument from reason provide dual process replies to the argument from reason—our beliefs can have both a naturalistic cause/ explanation and be caused/explained by its reasons, thereby showing that naturalism can accommodate knowledge. In this paper I consider three dual (...) process replies and conclude that none of them are successful. (shrink)

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that the same agential states can cause different possible actions. Nonreductive physicalism is, roughly, the view that mental states cause actions to occur, while these actions also have sufficient physical causes. Though libertarian free will and nonreductive physicalism have overlapping subject matter, and while libertarian free will is currently trending at the same time as nonreductive physicalism is a dominant metaphysical posture, there are few sustained expositions of a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian (...) free will – indeed some tell against such an admixture. This paper concocts such a blend by articulating and defending, with some caveats, a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian free will. (shrink)

This expository paper presents a general framework for representing levels and inter-level relations. The framework is intended to capture both epistemic and ontological notions of levels and to clarify the sense in which levels of explanation might or might not be related to a levelled ontology. The framework also allows us to study and compare different kinds of inter-level relations, especially supervenience and reduction but also grounding and mereological constitution. This, in turn, enables us to explore questions such as whether (...) supervenience implies explanatory reducibility and whether there can be irreducible higher-level explanations or even “emergent” higher-level properties. The paper finally discusses some further philosophical applications: to the free-will debate, the determinism-indeterminism distinction, indexicality and consciousness, and the relationship between positive and normative facts. (shrink)

The objective of the current paper is to provide a critical analysis of Dretske's defense of the naturalistic version of the privileged accessibility thesis. Dretske construed that the justificatory condition of privileged accessibility neither relies on the appeal to perspectival ontology of phenomenal subjectivity nor on the functionalistic notion of accessibility. He has reformulated introspection (which justifies the non-inferentiality of the knowledge of one's own mental facts in an internalist view) as a displaced perception for the defense of naturalistic privileged (...) accessibility. Both internalist and externalist have been approved the plausibility of first-person authority argument through privileged accessibility; however, their disagreement lies on the justificatory condition of privileged accessibility. Internalist hold the view that the justificatory warrant for privileged accessibility is grounded on phenomenal subjectivity. In contrast to the internalist view, externalists uphold the view that the justificatory condition for privileged accessibility lies outside the domain of phenomenal subjectivity. As a proponent of naturalistic content externalism, Dretske defends the view that subject's privileged accessibility is not due to having access to the particular representational state (hence, they have the privilege of getting sensory representational information) and the awareness of mental fact rather the awareness of the whole representational mechanism. Having the knowledge of a particular representational state through privileged access is not the sufficient condition for the accuracy of knowledge about one’s own mental facts. The justificatory warrant lies external to the subject. Even though Dretske’s naturalistic representation is not plausible enough while dealing with the reduction of phenomenal qualities of experience, however, provides a new roadmap to compatibilists for the defense of privileged accessibility and has a major impact on transparency theorists. (shrink)

According to conceptual reductive accounts, if properties of one domain can be conceptually reduced to properties of another domain, then the former properties are ontologically reduced to the latter properties. I will argue that conceptual reductive accounts face problems: either they do not recognise that many higher-level properties are correlated with multiple physical properties, or they do not clarify how we can discover new truthmakers of sentences about a higher-level property. Still, there is another way to motivate ontological reduction, the (...) truthmaker reductive explanations (TRE). TRE can be given by using resources from John Heil’s truthmaker theory and the a priori entailment view or the a posteriori entailment view. I will argue that we can give these truthmaker reductive explanations if there are various less-than-perfectly similar physical properties that can be the truthmakers of sentences about higher-level properties and the physical similarity between them can explain why an irreducible higher-level property is not needed. (shrink)

We give a general background describing how the notion of levels of reality comes about in contemporary nonreductive approaches to the special sciences, what the notion of levels means in these approaches, its role in our scientific outlook of the world, and why it is important.

This very brief but conceptually dense article provides a useful definition of consciousness, puts self consciousness into proper perspective, clarifies the nature of time, change and inertia, and ties consciousness to the foundations of physics as the inherent and fundamental process in nature. It is an implicit argument for a type of (proto) panpsychism or panexperientialism.

The subset realization view proposes to solve the causal exclusion problem of non‐reductive mental instances by taking the mental instance as a part of its physical realizer. Many philosophers have argued that such a part‐whole relation will undermine physicalist realization because parts are ontologically prior to their wholes and the subset view is thus flawed. I argue that the relation that the subset view should propose is different from the ordinary part‐whole relation. What they should propose is another kind of (...) part‐whole relation under which parts are posterior to wholes. So, the subset view is not flawed in the aforementioned aspect. But discussion of the new part‐whole relation reveals that the subset view is in lack of a crucial argument against the exclusion reasoning, thus cannot solve the exclusion problem. Adopting the principle of causal proportionality (a route subset realizationists sometimes take) will not help the subset view either. So, my conclusion is, the subset view is yet to find a way to solve the exclusion problem. (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalism states that actions have sufficient physical causes and distinct mental causes. Nonreductive physicalism has recently faced the exclusion problem, according to which the single sufficient physical cause excludes the mental causes from causal efficacy. Autonomists respond by stating that while mental-to-physical causation fails, mental-to-mental causation persists. Several recent philosophers establish this autonomy result via similar models of causation :1031–1049, 2016; Zhong, J Philos 111:341–360, 2014). In this paper I argue that both of these autonomist models fail on account (...) of the problem of Edwards’s Dictum. However, I appeal to foundational principles of action theory to resuscitate mental-to-mental causation in a manner that is consistent with the models of causation endorsed by these autonomists. (shrink)

Drawing on a rich pragmatist tradition, this book offers an account of the different kinds of ‘oughts’, or varieties of normativity, that we are subject to contends that there is no conflict between normativity and the world as science describes it. The authors argue that normative claims aim to evaluate, to urge us to do or not do something, and to tell us how a state of affairs ought to be. These claims articulate forms of action-guidance that are different in (...) kind from descriptive claims, with a wholly distinct practical and expressive character. This account suggests that there are no normative facts, and so nothing that needs any troublesome shoehorning into a scientific account of the world. This work explains that nevertheless, normative claims are constrained by the world, and answerable to reason and argumentation, in a way that makes them truth-apt and objective. (shrink)

A popular solution to the causal exclusion problem in the non-reductive physicalist camp is the trope identity solution. But this solution is haunted by the “quausation problem” which charges that the trope only confers causal powers qua physical, not qua mental. Although proponents of the trope solution have responded to the problem by denying the existence of properties of tropes, I do not find their reply satisfactory. Rather, I believe they have missed the core presupposition behind the quausation problem. I (...) will argue that the presupposition is the generalist notion of causation. Then, for the trope theorists to solve the quausation problem, they need to abandon the generalist notion and adopt the singularist notion of causation. However, making that move will lead them to a new quausation problem, rendering irreducible mental types causally irrelevant and mental causal explanations reducible. Either adopting a generalist notion or a singularist notion of causation, a quausation problem awaits the trope solution. Given this dilemma, my conclusion is that the trope identity solution cannot solve the exclusion problem in a non-reductive way. Moreover, the dilemma can be generalized, showing that token physicalism is a shaky position. (shrink)

Why do we value higher-level scientific explanations if, ultimately, the world is physical? An attractive answer is that physical explanations often cite facts that don’t make a difference to the event in question. I claim that to properly develop this view we need to commit to a type of deterministic chance. And in doing so, we see the theoretical utility of deterministic chance, giving us reason to accept a package of views including deterministic chance.

Morris’s book is a valuable contribution. For the reasons below, I don’t think his case against NRP succeeds, and his version of EP faces a serious difficulty. Even so, this is an admirably clear, subtle, and well-informed brief, and philosophers interested in the structure of natural reality have much to gain from Morris’s insightful discussion and argumentation.

We show that the so-called Multiple-Computations Theorem in cognitive science and philosophy of mind challenges Landauer’s Principle in physics. Since the orthodox wisdom in statistical physics is that Landauer’s Principle is implied by, or is the mechanical equivalent of, the Second Law of thermodynamics, our argument shows that the Multiple-Computations Theorem challenges the universal validity of the Second Law of thermodynamics itself. We construct two examples of computations carried out by one and the same dynamical process with respect to which (...) Landauer’s principle implies contradictory predictions concerning the entropy increase. Our two examples are based on a weak version of the Multiple-Computations Theorem, which is quite uncontroversial, and therefore they amount to a clear refutation of the universal validity of Landauer’s Principle. We consider some responses to this argument that do not attempt to single out one computation over the others, and we show that they do not work. We further consider ways out of the argument by externalist approaches supporting the computational theory of the mind who propose that the interaction of a computing system with the environment is enough to select a single computation over the others. We show on physical grounds that this approach fails too. We then reverse the direction of our challenge and formulate a dilemma for supporters of the computational theory of the mind: they must reject the causal closure of physic; or else they must accept on a priori grounds that Landauer’s Principle and the Second Law of thermodynamics are not universally valid. Finally, we present our version of a type–type mind-brain identity theory called Flat Physicalism, which is based on the paradigm case of statistical mechanics, and we show that it circumvents the challenge from Landauer’s Principle and the Multiple-Computations Theorem and does not fall prey to our dilemma. (shrink)

Espousing non-reductive physicalism, how do we pick out the specific relevant physical notion(s) from physical facts, specifically in relation to phenomenal experience? Beginning with a historical review of Gilbert Ryle’s behaviorism and moving through Hilary Putnam’s machine-state functionalism and Wilfrid Sellars’ inferential framework, up to more contemporaneous computationalist- and cognitivist-functionalism (Gualtiero Piccinini), we survey accounts of mentality that countenance the emergence of mental states vide input- and output-scheme. Ultimately arriving at the conclusion that functionalism cannot account for problems such as (...) no-cognition reports, we see any robust defense of physicalism must appeal to other principles. Thus we move on to the question of emergence, not as it pertains to the hard(er) problem, but to the matter of conceptual externalization of mental properties from physical properties. Accordingly, we navigate Karen Bennett’s compatibilist solution to the exclusion argument against mental causation for the non-reductive physicalist position, according to which the physical effects of mental cases are not overdetermined, demonstrating that this backfires by offering a path for the mind-body interactionist Dualist to claim causal closure by appealing to this same schema. We conclude with a series of conceptual musings regarding rationality which take into account our challenges and findings, querying about whether phenomenal consciousness is a fundamentally private, or socially configured, notion. (shrink)

We present a novel reductive theory of type-identity physicalism, which is inspired by the foundations of statistical mechanics as a general theory of natural kinds. We show that all the claims mounted against type-identity physicalism in the literature don’t apply to Flat Physicalism, and moreover that this reductive theory solves many of the problems faced by the various non-reductive approaches including functionalism. In particular, we show that Flat Physicalism can account for the appearance of multiple realizability in the special sciences, (...) and that it gives a novel account of the genuine autonomy of the kinds and laws in the special sciences. We further show that the thesis of genuine multiple realization, which is compatible with all forms of non-reductive approaches including functionalism, implies what we call token-dualism; namely the idea that in every token there are non-physical facts, which may either be non-physical properties or some non-physical substance. In other words, we prove that non-reductive kinds necessarily assume non-reductive tokens, i.e., token dualism. Finally, we show that all forms of non-reductive approaches including functionalism imply a literally multi-leveled structure of reality. (shrink)

Remember how Kim Mental causation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993b) used to argue against non-reductive physicalism to the effect that it cannot accommodate the causal efficacy of the mental? The argument was that if physicalists accept the causal closure of the physical, they are faced with an exclusion problem. In the original version of the argument, the dependence holding between the mental and the physical was cashed out in terms of supervenience. Due to the work or Fine and others, we have (...) since come to realize that modal notions are not well-suited to perform the work of properly characterizing dependence. As a consequence of this, an increasingly larger community of contemporary metaphysicians prefer to spell out mental-physical dependence in terms of a non-causal and non-reductive notion called grounding, which is intended to target a particular sort of metaphysical relation that takes us from ontologically less fundamental features of the world to that which is more fundamental. In this paper I join forces with those who think that this shift in focus is on the right track. More specifically, I will argue that the grounding physicalist can solve the exclusion problem in a way that is preferable to the supervenience-based nonreductive physicalist solution, as well as in a way that is compatible with the externalist picture of the mental. (shrink)

Review of Horgan, Sabatés, and Sosa's (eds.) *Qualia and Mental Causation in a Physical World: Themes from the Philosophy of Jaegwon Kim*.

Some non-reductionists claim that so-called ‘exclusion arguments’ against their position rely on a notion of causal sufficiency that is particularly problematic. I argue that such concerns about the role of causal sufficiency in exclusion arguments are relatively superficial since exclusionists can address them by reformulating exclusion arguments in terms of physical sufficiency. The resulting exclusion arguments still face familiar problems, but these are not related to the choice between causal sufficiency and physical sufficiency. The upshot is that objections to the (...) notion of causal sufficiency can be answered in a straightforward fashion and that such objections therefore do not pose a serious threat to exclusion arguments. (shrink)

Artikel ini bertujuan untuk memaparkan bagaimana penyebaban sosial dapat terjadi dalam perspektif individualisme non-reduktif (Non-reductive Individualism/NRI) R. Keith Sawyer. NRI adalah perluasan argumen fisikalisme non-reduktif dari filsafat akal budi untuk memberikan bingkai (framework) baru dalam melihat debat ontologis dan metodologis filsafat ilmu sosial. Cara yang digunakan adalah membasiskan landasan ontologis ilmu sosial pada eksistensi individu (individualisme ontologis), sekaligus mengiyakan dua level analisis properti, yakni level individual (bawah) dan sosial (atas) (dualisme properti). Mengingat posisi non-reduktif selalu dibayangi problem overdeterminasi dan epifenomena (...) saat berbicara tentang daya kausal level atas, Sawyer mengkombinasikan argumen supervenien (supervenience), perealisasian berlipat (multiple realizability/mr), disjungsi tak beraturan (wild disjunction/wd), serta kemunculan kolaboratif (collaborative emergence), untuk memperkuat pandangan penyebaban supervenien (supervenient causation/sv) dalam domain sosial. (shrink)

In C. S. Lewis’s Christian Apologetics: Pro and Con, I took the con in a debate with Victor Reppert about the soundness of Lewis’s famous “argument from reason.” Reppert then extended his argument in an article for Philosophia Christi; this article is my reply. I show that Reppert’s argument fails for three reasons. (1) It “loads the die” by falsely assuming that naturalism, by definition, can't include mental causation "on the basic level." (I provide multiple examples of naturalist theories of (...) mind that do exactly that). (2) Physical processes can reliably produce true beliefs. And (3) reasoning isn’t necessarily mental. (shrink)

In Explaining Attitudes, Baker argues that we should treat our everyday practices as relevant to metaphysical debates, resulting in a stance of realism with respect to intentional explanations. In this chapter I will argue that if one is going to be a practical realist about anything, it should be the self, or subject of attention. I will use research on attention combined with the stance of practical realism to argue in favor of a substantive self. That is, I will present (...) an account of the self that directs and controls attention, in line with our everyday view of the self. I will contrast this account with what I call the “illusion view,” which presents the self and its apparent causal power in the case of attention as an illusion. My account of the self will make use of several of Baker's ideas, including non-reductive materialism and broad supervenience. (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalists endorse the principle of mental causation, according to which some events have mental causes: Sid climbs the hill because he wants to. Nonreductive physicalists also endorse the principle of physical causal completeness, according to which physical events have sufficient physical causes: Sid climbs the hill because a complex neural process in his brain triggered his climbing. Critics typically level the causal exclusion problem against this nonreductive physicalist model, according to which the physical cause is a sufficient cause of (...) the behavioural effect, so the mental cause is excluded from causally influencing Sid’s behaviour. In this paper I demonstrate how numerous nonreductive physicalists have responded to the causal exclusion problem by weakening the principle of physical causal completeness in numerous ways. The result: either numerous nonreductive physicalist solutions fail on account of the fact that they do not satisfy a robustly defined principle of physical causal completeness, or there is an accelerating trend of solving the causal exclusion problem by suitably weakening the principle of physical causal completeness. (shrink)

In the current article and contrary to a widespread assumption, I argue that Humeanism and ontological emergence can peacefully coexist. Such a coexistence can be established by reviving elements of John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of science, in which an idiosyncratic account of diachronic emergence is associated with extensions of the Humean mosaic and the correlative coming into being of new best system laws, which have the peculiarity of being temporally indexed. Incidentally, this reconciliation of Humeanism and emergence allows for conceiving (...) the autonomy of the special sciences in an interesting way, consistently with the reductionist ideal of a unified science. (shrink)

The concept of truthmaking, the idea that when a statement is true, there is typically something about the world in virtue of which it is true, has garnered much interest in recent metaphysics. Often, the motivation has been the thought that truthmaking can provide a new perspective on an important issue. This paper evaluates the claim that truthmaking can play a substantive role in defining an unproblematic notion of emergence. For despite playing an important role in philosophical discourse over the (...) past 100 years, it has often been thought that there is something mysterious about the notion of emergence. It has recently been argued, however, that once emergent properties are characterized as those that, while “ontologically dependent” are yet needed as truthmakers emergence and emergent properties prove unproblematic. In response, I argue that there is reason to doubt that truthmaking can play an important role in formulating an unproblematic yet recognizable notion of emergence. I argue that it is consistent with truthmaking being unable to play a substantive role in emergentism that truthmaking can play a more significant role in characterizing an attractive middle ground between reductive and nonreductive physicalism. (shrink)

This paper explores and defends the idea that mental properties and their physical bases jointly cause their physical effects. The paper evaluates the view as an emergentist response to the exclusion problem, comparing it with a competing nonreductive physicalist solution, the compatibilist solution, and argues that the joint causation view is more defensible than commonly supposed. Specifically, the paper distinguishes two theses of closure, Strong Closure and Weak Closure, two causal exclusion problems, the overdetermination problem and the supervenience problem, and (...) argues that emergentists can avoid the overdetermination problem by denying Strong Closure and respond to the supervenience problem by accepting the joint causation view. (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalists endorse autonomous mental causation, the view that mental causes, as distinct from physical causes, bring about mental and physical effects. The causal exclusion problem has recently pressured nonreductive physicalists to replace autonomous mental causation with reduced mental causation, the view that mental causes, as physical causes, bring about mental and physical effects. Reduced mental causation, in turn, faces the problem of mental quausation, according to which reduced mental causation only delivers mental‐as‐physical causation, not the requisite mental‐as‐mental causation. Proponents (...) of reduced mental causation have responded by emphasizing the success of reduction in delivering mental causation, while questioning the metaphysical legitimacy of mental quausation (Tiehen, 2019; Gibb, 2017; Robb, 2017; 2013).1 In this paper, I argue that the requirement for mental quausation not only withstands these objections, but that mental quausation is an inevitable problematic for any version of reduced mental causation. (shrink)

Our minds have physical effects. This happens, for instance, when we move our bodies when we act. How is this possible? Thomas Kroedel defends an account of mental causation in terms of difference-making: if our minds had been different, the physical world would have been different; therefore, the mind causes events in the physical world. His account not only explains how the mind has physical effects at all, but solves the exclusion problem - the problem of how those effects can (...) have both mental and physical causes. It is also unprecedented in scope, because it is available to dualists about the mind as well as physicalists, drawing on traditional views of causation as well as on the latest developments in the field of causal modelling. It will be of interest to a range of readers in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. This book is also available as Open Access. (shrink)