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Has the last decade of challenges to the multiple realization argument provided aid and comfort to psychoneural reductionists?

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Abstract

The previous decade has seen renewed critical interest in the multiple realization argument. These criticisms constitute a “second wave” of challenges to this central argument in late-20th century philosophy of mind. Unlike the first wave, which challenged the premise that multiple realization is inconsistent with reduction or type identity, this second wave challenges the truth of the multiple realization premise itself. Since psychoneural reductionism was prominent among the explicit targets of the multiple realization argument, one might think that this second wave of challenges provides important aid and comfort to reductionists. In this paper, however, I provide reasons for thinking it does not. This is not to the detriment of psychoneural reductionism because, as I also argue here, and unrecognized by the current non-reductive orthodoxy in philosophy of mind, one key argument among the first wave of criticisms of the multiple realization argument has never been adequately rejoined.

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  1. Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA

    John Bickle

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  1. John Bickle
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Correspondence to John Bickle.

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Bickle, J. Has the last decade of challenges to the multiple realization argument provided aid and comfort to psychoneural reductionists?. Synthese 177, 247–260 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9843-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9843-y

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