Philosophia 39 (3):511-525 (2011)
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Abstract |
The type-type reductive identity of the mental to the physical was once the dominant position in the mental causation debate. In time this consensus was overturned, largely due to its inability to handle the problem of multiple realizability. In its place a nonreductive position emerged which often included an adherence to functionalism. Functionalism construes mental properties as functional states of an organism, which in turn have specific physical realizers. This nonreductive form of functionalism, henceforth called role functionalism, has faced a number of criticisms itself. Chief among these is the concern that the realizer of the functional role is causally sufficient, so the role property does not make a contribution of its own. In this paper I argue that there is a way for unreduced functional properties to play a role after all. This is done by conceiving of functional properties as higher level functional properties of a macro system which determine that its realizers will play the roles that they play.
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Keywords | Functionalism Epiphenomenalism Nonreductive physicalism Causal exclusion Mental causation |
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DOI | 10.1007/s11406-011-9302-0 |
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References found in this work BETA
A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects.David Hume & D. G. C. Macnabb (eds.) - 1738 - Collins.
Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind–Body Problem and Mental Causation.Jaegwon Kim - 1998 - MIT Press.
Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays.Jaegwon Kim - 1993 - Cambridge University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Supervenient Emergentism and Mereological Emergentism.Dwayne Moore - 2015 - Axiomathes 25 (4):457-477.
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