Synthese 199 (1-2):2773-2791 (2021)
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Abstract |
Epiphenomenalism denies some or all putative cases of mental causation. The view is widely taken to be absurd: if a theory can be shown to entail epiphenomenalism, many see that as a reductio of that theory. Opponents take epiphenomenalism to be absurd because they regard the view as undermining the evident agency we have in action and precluding substantial self-knowledge. In this paper, I defend epiphenomenalism against these objections, and thus against the negative dialectical role that the view plays in philosophy of mind. I argue that nearly in all cases where a theory implies one kind of epiphenomenalism, it is an epiphenomenalism of a non-problematic kind, at least as far as issues about agency and self-knowledge are concerned. There is indeed a problematic version of epiphenomenalism, but that version is not relevant to the debates where its apparent absurdity is invoked.
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Keywords | mental causation epiphenomenalism |
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DOI | 10.1007/s11229-020-02911-w |
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References found in this work BETA
The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.David J. Chalmers - 1996 - Oxford University Press.
The Meaning of 'Meaning'.Hillary Putnam - 1975 - Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:131-193.
Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind–Body Problem and Mental Causation.Jaegwon Kim - 1998 - MIT Press.
View all 67 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Physicalism or Anti-Physicalism: A Disjunctive Account.Umut Baysan & Nathan Wildman - forthcoming - Erkenntnis.
The Pursuit of Neutrality in the Metaphysics of Emergence.Umut Baysan - 2022 - Analysis 82 (1):159-169.
An Equivocation in the Simple Argument for Downward Causation.Matthew Rellihan - 2021 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 10 (4):249-256.
View all 6 citations / Add more citations
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