Abstract
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 the requisite,metaphysically robust notion of realization is ineliminably context-sensitive. I shall argue that the sufficiency and constitutivity theses aretypically not jointly satisfied by any one candidate realizer, and that goingcontext-sensitive in one's metaphysics is preferable to the standard view.The context-sensitive views developed here are implicit in a range ofcommon views in both the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of biology,even if they have not been explicitly articulated, and even though theyundermine other views that are commonly endorsed.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Block, N. (1980): Introduction to his Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.
Block, N. (1980a) (ed.): Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Boyd, R.N. (1980): ‘Materialism without Reductionism:What Physicalism Does Not Entail’, in N. Block (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.
Burge, T. (1979): ‘Individualism and the Mental’, in P. French, U. Uehling, Jr. and H. Wettstein (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 4, Metaphysics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Burge, T. (1986): ‘Individualism and Psychology’, Philosophical Review 95, 3–45.
Cholewiak, R. and Collins, A. (1991): ‘Sensory and Physiological Bases of Touch’, inM.A. Heller and W. Schiff (eds.), The Psychology of Touch,Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaumn.
Clark, A. and Chalmers, D. (1998): ‘The Extended Mind’, Analysis 58, 10–23.
Cummins, R. (1983): The Nature of Psychological Explanation, Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.
Davidson, D. (1970): ‘Mental Events’, reprinted in his Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Davidson, D. (1974): ‘Philosophy as Psychology, reprinted in his Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Dennett, D. (1978): ‘Artificial Intelligence as Philosophy and as Psychology’, reprinted in his Brainstorms, Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.
Fodor, J.A. (1974): ‘Special Sciences’, reprinted in his Representations, Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1981.
Fodor, J.A. (1989): ‘Making Mind Matter More’, reprinted in his A Theory of Content and Other Essays, Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1990.
Heil, J. (1992): The Nature of True Minds, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hendry, S. (1999): ‘Pain’, in Wilson and Keil (eds.), pp. 618–620.
Horgan, T. (1982): ‘Supervenience and Microphysics’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63, 29–43.
Horgan, S. (1993): ‘From Supervenience to Superdupervenience: Meeting the Demands of a Material World’, Mind 102, 555–586.
Houghton, D. (1997): ‘Mental Content and External Representations’, Philosophical Quarterly 47, 159–177.
Hutchins, E. (1995): Cognition in the Wild, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jeannerod, M. (1994): ‘The Representing Brain: Neural Correlates of Motor Intention and Imagery’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17, 187–245.
Kim, J. (1978): ‘Supervenience and Nomological Incommensurables’, American Philosophical Quarterly 15, 148–156.
Kim, J. (1982): ‘Psychophysical Supervenience’, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1984a): ‘Concepts of Supervenience’, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1984b): ‘Epiphenomenal and Supervenient Causation’, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1987): “ 'strong’ and ‘Global’ Supervenience Revisited”, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1988): ‘Supervenience for Multiple Domains’, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1989): ‘The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism’, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1990): ‘Supervenience as a Philosophical Concept’, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1992): ‘Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction’, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1993): Supervenience andMind, New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.
Kim, J. (1993a): ‘The Nonreductivist's Troubles with Mental Causation’, reprinted in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1993b): ‘Postscripts on Supervenience’ in his 1993.
Kim, J. (1994): ‘Supervenience’, in S. Guttenplan (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Klatzky, R. (1999): ‘Haptic Perception’, in Wilson and Keil (eds.), pp. 359–360.
LeDoux, J.E. (1996): The Emotional Brain, New York: Simon and Schuster.
LeDoux, J.E. and Rogan, M. (1999): ‘Emotion and the Animal Brain’, in Wilson and Keil (eds.), pp. 268–270.
Lewis, D.K. (1972): ‘Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50, 291–315.
Lewis, D.K. (1994): ‘Lewis, David: Reduction of Mind’, in S. Guttenplan (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
Lycan, W. (1987): Consciousness, Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.
Marr, D. (1982): Vision: A Computational Approach, San Francisco: Freeman.
McClamrock, R. (1995): Existential Cognition: Computational Minds in the World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pereboom, D. and Kornblith, H. (1991): ‘The Metaphysics of Irreducibility’, Philosophical Studies 63, 125–145.
Poland, J. (1994): Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundations, New York: Oxford University Press.
Putnam, H. (1960): ‘Minds and Machines’, reprinted in his Mind, Language, and Reality, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Putnam, H. (1975): ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”’, reprinted in his Mind, Language, and Reality, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shoemaker, S. (1981): ‘Some Varieties of Functionalism’, reprinted in his Identity, Cause, and Mind, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sober, E. (1993): Philosophy of Biology, Boulder, CO: Westview.
Walsh, D. (1998): ‘Wide Content Individualism’, Mind 107,625–651.
Wilson, R.A. (1994): ‘Wide Computationalism’, Mind 103, 351–372.
Wilson, R.A. (1995): Cartesian Psychology and Physical Minds: Individualism and the Sciences of the Mind, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, R.A. (1999): ‘The Individual in Biology and Psychology’, in V. Hardcastle (ed.), Where Biology Meets Psychology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wilson, R.A. (2000): ‘The Mind Beyond Itself’, in D. Sperber (ed.), Metarepresentation, New York: Oxford U.P.
Wilson, R.A. and Keil, F.C. (eds.) (1999): the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Yablo, S.: 1992, ‘Mental Causation’, Philosophical Review 101: 245–280. University of Alberta Department of Philosophy 4—115 Humanities TG6 2E5 Edomonton Canada E-mail: rob.wilson@valberta.ca
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wilson, R.A. Two Views of Realization. Philosophical Studies 104, 1–31 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010358523824
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010358523824