The paper argues that mental causation can be explained from the sufficiency of counterfactual dependence for causation together with relatively weak assumptions about the metaphysics of mind. If a physical event counterfactually depends on an earlier physical event, it also counterfactually depends on, and hence is caused by, a mental event that correlates with (or supervenes on) this earlier physical event, provided that this correlation (or supervenience) is sufficiently modally robust. This account of mental (...) class='Hi'>causation is consistent with the overdetermination of physical events by mental events and other physical events, but does not entail it. (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)

In this paper I will discuss Kims powerful explanatory exclusion argument against the causal efficacy of mental properties. Baker and Burge misconstrue Kims challenge if they understand it as being based on a purely metaphysical understanding of causation that has no grounding in an epistemological analysis of our successful scientific practices. As I will show, the emphasis on explanatory practices can only be effective in answering Kim if it is understood as being part of the dual-explanandum strategy. Furthermore, (...) a fundamental problem of the contemporary debate about mental causation consists in the fact that all sides take very different examples to be paradigmatic for the relation between psychological and neurobiological explanations. Even if we should expect some alignment in the explanatory scope of neurobiology and psychology/folk-psychology, there is no reason to expect that all mental explanations are exempted by physical explanations, since they do not in general explain the same phenomena. (shrink)

Mental causation has been a hotly disputed topic in recent years, with reductive and non-reductive physicalists vying with each other and with dualists over how to accommodate, or else to challenge, two widely accepted metaphysical principles—the principle of the causal closure of the physical domain and the principle of causal non-overdetermination—which together appear to support reductive physicalism, despite the latter’s lack of intuitive appeal. Current debate about these matters appears to have reached something of an impasse, prompting the (...) question of why this should be so. One possibility well worth exploring is that, while this debate makes extensive use of ontological vocabulary—by talking, for instance, of substances, events, states, properties, powers, and relations—relatively little attempt has been made within the debate itself to achieve either clarity or agreement about what, precisely, such terms should be taken to mean. Hence, the debate has become somewhat detached from broader developments in metaphysics and ontology, which have lately been proceeding apace, providing us with an increasingly rich and refined set of ontological categories upon which to draw, as well as a much deeper understanding of how they are related to one another. In preparing this volume, the editors invited leading metaphysicians and philosophers of mind to reflect afresh upon the problem of mental causation in the light of some of these recent developments, with a view to making new headway with one of the most challenging and seemingly intractable issues in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I do three things. First, I argue that Stephen Yablo’s influential account of mental causation is susceptible to counterexamples involving what I call disproportional mental causation. Second, I argue that similar counterexamples can be generated for any alternative account of mental causation that is like Yablo’s in that it takes mental states and their physical realizers to causally compete. Third, I show that there are alternative nonreductive approaches to mental (...) causation which reject the idea of causal competition, and which thus are able to allow for disproportional mental causation. This, I argue, is a significant advantage for such noncompetitive accounts. (shrink)

This paper identifies and critiques a theory of mental causation defended by some proponents of nonredutive physicalism that I call “intralevelism.” Intralevelist theories differ in their details. On all versions, the causal outcome of the manifestation of physical properties is physical and the causal outcome of the manifestation of mental properties is mental. Thus, mental causation on this view is intralevel mental to mental causation. This characterization of mental causation (...) as intralevel is taken to insulate nonreductive physicalism from some objections to nonreductive physicalism, including versions of the exclusion argument. This paper examines some features of three recent versions of intralevelism defended by John Gibbons, Markus Schlosser, and Amie Thomasson. This paper shows that the distinctive problems faced by these three representative versions of intralevelism suggest that the intralevelist strategy does not provide a viable solution to the exclusion problem. (shrink)

This paper is about a puzzle which lies at the heart of contemporary physicalist theories of mind. On the one hand, the original motivation for physicalism was the need to explain the place of mental causation in the physical world. On the other hand, physicalists have recently come to see the explanation of mental causation as one of their major problems. But how can this be? How can it be that physicalist theories still have a problem (...) explaining something which their physicalism was intended to explain in the first place? If physicalism is meant to be an explanation of mental causation, then why should it still face the problem of mental causation? (shrink)

The paper argues that dualism can explain mental causation and solve the exclusion problem. If dualism is combined with the assumption that the psychophysical laws have a special status, it follows that some physical events counterfactually depend on, and are therefore caused by, mental events. Proponents of this account of mental causation can solve the exclusion problem in either of two ways: they can deny that it follows that the physical effect of a mental (...) event is overdetermined by its mental and physical causes, or they can accept that the physical effect is overdetermined but claim that this is unproblematic because the case is sufficiently dissimilar to prototypical cases of overdetermination. (shrink)

This paper argues that the exclusion problem for mental causation can be solved by a variant of non-reductive physicalism that takes the mental not merely to supervene on, but to be grounded in, the physical. A grounding relation between events can be used to establish a principle that links the causal relations of grounded events to those of grounding events. Given this principle, mental events and their physical grounds either do not count as overdetermining physical effects, (...) or they do so in a way that is not objectionable. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker has proposed a new definition of `realization’ and used it to try to explain how mental events can be causes within the framework of a non-reductive physicalism. I argue that it is not actually his notion of realization that is doing the work in his account of mental causation, but rather the assumption that certain physical properties entail mental properties that do not entail them. I also point out how his account relies on certain (...) other controversial assumptions, including analytical filler-functionalism for mental properties, and the assumption that causes must be proportional to their effects. I conclude by pointing out that Shoemaker has provided no explanation of why, on his view, certain physical properties entail mental properties. (shrink)

In my article I evaluate Searle's account of mental causation, in particular his account of the causal efficacy of unconscious intentional states. I argue that top-down causation and overdetermination are unsolved problems in Searle's philosophy of mind, despite his assurances to the contrary. I also argue that there are conflicting claims involved in his account of mental causation and his account of the unconscious. As a result, it becomes impossible to understand how unconscious intentional states (...) can be causally efficacious. My conclusion will be that if Searle's conception of unconscious intentionality is to play a genuine role in the causal explanation of human action, it needs to be rethought. (shrink)

The standard objection to dualist theories of mind is that they seemingly cannot account for the obvious fact that mental phenomena cause our behaviour. On the plausible assumption that all our behaviour is physically necessitated by entirely physical phenomena, there appears to be no room for dualist mental causation. Some argue that dualists can address this problem by making minimal adjustments in their ontology. I argue that no such adjustments are required. Given recent developments in philosophy of (...) causation, it is plausible that mental phenomena cause behaviour in standard dualist ontologies. (shrink)

James decides that the best price today on pork chops is at Supermarket S, then James makes driving motions for twenty minutes, then James’ car enters the parking lot at Supermarket S. Common sense supposes that the stages in this sequence may be causally connected, and that the pattern is commonplace: James’ belief (together with his desire for pork chops) causes bodily behavior, and the behavior causes a change in James’ whereabouts. Anyone committed to the idea that beliefs and desires (...) are states installed by evolution must, it seems, think something similar. For how can one see beliefs and desires as conferring selective advantage if not by supposing that, by causing bodily behavior in their subjects, they brought about changes in their subjects’ surroundings? Yet many, many philosophers currently think or worry that mental causation is illusory (see, e.g., Heil and Mele 1993, or Macdonald and Macdonald 1995). Any physical changes which a mental state appears to cause can be viewed as a complex event involving microparticles, and for any such complex event, many philosophers suppose, there will have been previous microphysical occurrences sufficient to cause it. Barring routine overdetermination of such complex events, the apparent causation of mental events seems to be excluded. Nor does it help to say that some salient segment of the previous microphysical event just is the mental event, differently described (Davidson 1970). For describing the previous events as microphysical seems to spotlight the very features in virtue of which they did their causal work; the mental features seem epiphenomenal (Yablo 1992b: pp. 425-36; Yablo 1992a). This paper argues that the complex physical events, which mental events seem excluded from causing, are not caused at all. For they are either accidents, in something like Aristotle’s sense (Sorabji 1980: pp. 3-25), or coincidences, in a sense which David Owens has recently sharpened (Owens 1992). (shrink)

The philosophical problem of mental causation concerns a clash between commonsense and scientific views about the causation of human behaviour. On the one hand, commonsense suggests that our actions are caused by our mental states—our thoughts, intentions, beliefs and so on. On the other hand, neuroscience assumes that all bodily movements are caused by neurochemical events. It is implausible to suppose that our actions are causally overdetermined in the same way that the ringing of a bell (...) may be overdetermined by two hammers striking it at the same time. So how are we to reconcile these two views about the causal origins of human behaviour? One philosophical doctrine effects a nice reconciliation. Neuralism, or the token-identity theory, states that every particular mental event is a neurophysiological event and that every action is a physically specifiable bodily movement. If these identities hold, there is no problem of causal overdetermination: the apparently different causal pathways to the behaviour are actually one and the same pathway viewed from different perspectives. This attractively simple view is enjoying a recent revival in fortunes. (shrink)

The standard paradigm for mental causation is a person’s acting for a reason. Something happens - she intentionally φ’s - the occurrence of which we explain by citing a relevant belief or desire. In the present context, I simply take for granted the following two conditions on the appropriateness of this explanation. First, the agent φ’s _because_ she believes/desires what we say she does, where this is expressive of a _causal_ dependence.1 Second, her believing/desiring this gives her a (...) _reason_ for φ-ing: recognizing that she has this belief/desire makes her φ-ing intelligible as rational in the light of her other attitudes and circumstances. A further condition must be met, though, if this is to be a genuine psychological explanation, a case of her acting _for_ the reason in question. Consider the following example of Davidson’s (1973, p. 79). An exhausted climber is desperate to rid herself of the weight and danger of holding her partner on a rope; and her sudden realization that simply letting go would achieve this so unnerves her that her grip loosens slightly and he falls. Her releasing him causally depends upon her having this belief and desire, which provide _a_ reason for doing what she does. But this is not _why_ she does it: it would be at best misleading to say that she dropped him, intentionally, because she was fed up with holding his weight, or because she thought that she might otherwise fall. Her letting go does not depend upon her having these reasons in the right way. The reason-giving relation is causally irrelevant. If we are to explain a person’s acting _for_ a reason, then her doing. (shrink)

E.J. Lowe has recently proposed a model of mental causation on which mental events are emergent, thus exerting a novel, downward causal influence on physical events. Yet on Lowe's model, mental causation is at the same time empirically undetectable, and in this sense is "invisible". Lowe's model is ingenious, but I don't think emergentists should welcome it, for it seems to me that a primary virtue of emergentism is its bold empirical prediction about the long-term (...) results of human physiology. Here I'll try to restore emergentism's empirical status, but my broader aim is to use Lowe's model to explore some central topics in the mental causation debate, including the "causal closure" of the physical world and the nature of causal powers. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a brief overview of mental causation problem and its current proposed solutions. Indeed, mental causation turns out as one of the most difficult philosophical conundrums in contemporary philosophy of mind. In the first two sections, we offer an outline of the problem and the philosophical debate about it, and show that mental causation problem is pivotal within the contemporary philosophy of mind. In the third section, we focus on the (...) most popular models of mental causation, namely Kim's and Davidson's accounts, also discussing the objections raised against them. In the final section, we take into consideration some recent proposals poised to solve the mental causation problem, including powerism. Given the logical and metaphysical plausibility of almost all these different options, our conclusion is that mental causation is still an open problem and it is far from being resolved. (shrink)

<b> </b>Abstract: It is generally accepted that the most serious threat to the possibility of mental causation is posed by the causal self-sufficiency of physical causal processes. I argue, however, that this feature of the world, which I articulate in principle I call Completeness, in fact poses no genuine threat to mental causation. Some find Completeness threatening to mental causation because they confuse it with a stronger principle, which I call Closure. Others do not (...) simply conflate Completeness and Closure, but hold that Completeness, together with certain plausible assumptions, _entails_ Closure. I refute the most fully worked-out version of such an argument. Finally, some find Completeness all by itself threatening to mental causation. I argue that one will only find Completeness threatening if one operates with a philosophically distorted conception of mental causation. I thereby defend what I call naïve realism about mental causation. (shrink)

The so-called problem of mental causation as discussed in the recent literature raises three central challenges for an adequate solution from a physicalist perspective: the threat of epiphenomenalism, the problem of externalism (or the difficulty in accounting for the causal efficacy of extrinsic mental properties) and the problem of causal exclusion (or the threat of over determination). We wish to account for mental causationas a real phenomenon within a physicalistic framework without accepting epiphenomenalism or overdetermination. The (...) key ideas of our proposal are an internal realism of causation combined with a relative notion of individuating events. We are arguing?contra Davidson?tha there is no absolute notion of events (neither as types nor as tokens) but rather one which is relative to explanatory interests and our intuitions concerning a relevant spatial and temporal overlap. Furthermore, we are presupposing a metaphysics of internal realism: We can only characterize entities by means of concepts produced within our epistemological framework. Physical concepts and mental concepts crossclassify the world as it is. Relying on this framework we try to explain how mental causation can be adequately described: Although mental concepts are not reducible to physical concepts and mental event-tokens may be different from "underlying" physical event-tokens, mental events are real phenomena that are realized by physical phenomena in special context conditions. (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)

Suppose that, for every event, whether mental or physical, there is some physical event causally sufficient for it. Suppose, moreover, that physical reductionism in its various forms fails—that mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties and mental events cannot be reduced to physical events. In this case, how could there be mental causation? More specifically, how could mental events cause other mental events, physical events, and intentional actions? The primary goal of this (...) paper is to answer this question. (shrink)

The paper argues for four claims: (1) The problem of mental causation and the argument for its solution in terms of the identity of mental with physical causes are independent of the theory of causation one favours. (2) If one considers our experience of agency as described by folk psychology to be veridical, one is committed to an anti-Humean metaphysics of causation in terms of powers that establish necessary connections. The same goes for functional properties (...) in general. (3) A metaphysics of causation in terms of powers is compatible with physics. (4) If combined with the argument for mental causes being identical with physical causes, that metaphysics leads to a conservative reductionism. (shrink)

Mental causation is notoriously threatened by the causal exclusion argument. A prominent strategy to save mental causation from causal exclusion consists in subscribing to an interventionist account of causation. This move has, however, recently been challenged by several authors. In this paper, we do two things: We (i) develop what we consider to be the strongest version of the interventionist causal exclusion argument currently on the market and (ii) propose a new way how it can (...) in principle be overcome. In particular, we propose to replace strict supervenience in the assumption that the mental supervenes on the physical by probabilistic supervenience and show how this move has the potential to license the inference to mental causation. Finally, we argue that probabilistic supervenience captures some of the most important intuitions that strict supervenience captures and discuss possible objections to weakening strict supervenience in the way we suggest. (shrink)

Interactive dualism is notorious for supporting genuine and autonomous mental causation that is allegedly impossible for its confliction with basic principles of physics. The purpose of this essay is to show the invalidity of this commonplace view, by arguing to the contrary in three different steps. First, I will deal with the objection about the non-scientific character of interactive dualism, as it is conceived of in present-day philosophy of mind. Second, I will illustrate and critically examine three contemporary (...) models of dualistically understood mental causation. Finally, I will summarise the chief assumptions made in these models and try to lay down my own proposal. (shrink)

I survey recent work on mental causation. The discussion is conducted under the twin presumptions that mental states, including especially what subjects believe and desire, causally explain what subjects do, and that the physical sciences can in principle give a complete explanation for each and every bodily movement. I start with sceptical discussions of various views that hold that, in some strong sense, the causal explanations offered by psychology are autonomous with respect to those offered by the (...) physical sciences. I then proceed to views that see the problem of mental causation as that of identifying where in the physical story about us and our world lie the parts that in effect tell us abut mental causation - the kind of position that is pretty much standard in the cognitive science community - and consider issues raised by various forms of functionalism and externalism. The general thrust of my discussion is sympathetic to the story about mental causation suggested by those type-type versions of the mind-brain identity theory that allow for the possiblity of multiple realisability. I include a brief discussion of how a map-system account of belief, by contrast with a language of thought one, should understand explanations of behaviour in terms of what a subject believes. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I try to answer the following somewhat Kantian question: How is mental causation possible? For the discussion of the nature of mental properties, I accept the two tenets of functionalism: the multiple realizability thesis and the functional conception of mental properties as causal intermediaries between physical causes and effects. I then introduce the following two principles: the principle of physical realization and the principle of causal power identity. It is the principle of physical (...) realization that dictates that every mental property be physically realized for its instantiation. The principle of causal power identity ensures that the causal power of a mental property is identical with those of its physical realizers. I suggest that the realization relation between the mental and the physical be understood in such a way that a mental property has causal powers identical with those of its physical realizers, but that the mental property itself is not reduced to its physical realizers because the two kinds of properties are not identical. Mental properties are realized in physical properties, and the causal powers of mental properties are identical with those of physical properties; therefore, mental properties are as causally efficacious as their physical realizers. Since mental properties are not reducible to physical properties, they enjoy autonomy with the full causal powers of their realizers. To conclude, mental properties do not lose out to epiphenomenalism; and they have their own autonomy. (shrink)

Common sense and philosophical tradition agree that mind makes a difference. What we do depends not only on how our bodies are put together, but also on what we think. Explaining how mind can make a difference has proved challenging, however. Some have urged that the project faces an insurmountable dilemma: either we concede that mentalistic explanations of behavior have only a pragmatic standing or we abandon our conception of the physical domain as causally autonomous. Although each option has its (...) advocates, most theorists have sought a middle way that accommodates both the common-sense view of mind and the metaphysical conviction about the physical world. This volume presents a collection of new, specially written essays by a diverse group of philosophers, each of whom is widely known for defending a particular conception of minds and their place in nature. Contributors include Robert Audi, Lynne Rudder Baker, Tyler Burge, Donald Davidson, Fred Dretske, Ted Honderich, Jennifer Hornsby, Frank Jackson, Jaegwon Kim, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ruth Garrett Millikan, H. W. Noonan, Philip Pettit, Ernest Sosa, and Robert Van Gulick. (shrink)

The problem of mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind concerns the possibility of holding two different views that are in apparent tension. The first is physicalism, the view that there is nothing more to the world than the physical. The second is that the mental has genuine causal efficacy in a way that does not reduce to pure physical particle-bumping. This article provides a historical background to this question, with focus on Davidson’s anomalous monism and Kim’s (...) causal exclusion problem. Responses to causal exclusion are categorized in terms of six different argumentative strategies. In conclusion, caution is advised regarding the inclination to reduce the mental to the physical and sketch a positive direction for substantively characterizing mental causation by recourse to well-confirmed accounts of causation coupled with empirical research. (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalism provides an appealing solution to the nature of mental properties. But its success as a theory of mental properties has been called into doubt by claims that it cannot adequately handle the problems of mental causation, as it leads either to epiphenomenalism or to thoroughgoing overdetermination. I argue that these apparent problems for the nonreductivist are based in fundamental confusion about causation and explanation. I distinguish two different types of explanation and two different (...) relations to which they appeal: causation and determination. I argue that these types of explanation do not compete with one another, nor do these relations jointly result in overdetermination. In closing I develop a nonreductivist solution to mental causation which avoids both the hazards of epiphenomenalism and of overdetermination and so demonstrates a way to save nonreductive physicalism from the problems of mental causation. (shrink)

Any theory of mind needs to explain mental causation. Kim’s exclusion argument concludes that non-reductive physicalism cannot meet this challenge. One classic reply is that mental properties capture the causally relevant level of generality, because they are insensitive to physical realization. However, this reply suggests downward exclusion, contrary to physicalism’s assumption of closure. This paper shows how non-reductive physicalists can solve this problem by introducing a contrastive account of causation with non-exhaustive contrasts. That view has independent (...) justification, because it is also needed to solve other puzzles. On this theory, both a mental property and its physical realizer can cause the same physical effect without lapsing into any problematic overdetermination when they cause that effect in contrast with distinct foils. This contrastive solution has advantages over previous accounts of mental causation and is defended against objections. (shrink)

My aim is twofold: first, to root out the metaphysical assumptions that generate the problem of mental causation and to show that they preclude its solution; second, to dissolve the problem of mental causation by motivating rejection of one of the metaphysical assumptions that give rise to it. There are three features of this metaphysical background picture that are important for our purposes. The first concerns the nature of reality: all reality depends on physical reality, where (...) physical reality consists of a network of events.1 The second concerns the nature of causation, and the third concerns the conception of behavior. I try to vindicate a robust idea of mental causation. (shrink)

Two thousand years ago, Lucretius said that everything is atoms in the void; it's physics all the way down. Contemporary physicalism agrees. But if that's so how can we—how can our thoughts, emotions, our values—make anything happen in the physical world? This conceptual knot, the mental causation problem, is the core of the mind-body problem, closely connected to the problems of free will, consciousness, and intentionality. Anthony Dardis shows how to unravel the knot. He traces its early appearance (...) in the history of philosophical inquiry, specifically in the work of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and T. H. Huxley. He then develops a metaphysical framework for a theory of causation, laws of nature, and the causal relevance of properties. Using this framework, Dardis explains how macro, or higher level, properties can be causally relevant in the same way that microphysical properties are causally relevant: by their relationship with the laws of nature. Smelling an orange, choosing the orange rather than the cheesecake, reaching for the one on the left instead of the one on the right-mental properties such as these take their place alongside the physical "motor of the world" in making things happen. (shrink)

Counterfactual conditionals have been appealed to in various ways to show how the mind can be causally efficacious. However, it has often been overestimated what the truth of certain counterfactuals actually indicates about causation. The paper first identifies four approaches that seem to commit precisely this mistake. The arguments discussed involve erroneous assumptions about the connection of counterfactual dependence and genuine causation, as well as a disregard of the requisite evaluation conditions of counterfactuals. In a second step, the (...) paper uses the insights of the foregoing analyses to formulate a set of counterfactuals-based conditions that are characterized as sufficient to establish singular causal claims. The paper concludes that there are ample reasons to believe that some mental events satisfy all these conditions with respect to certain further events and, hence, that mental events sometimes are causes. (shrink)

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents: Introduction. Marc SLORS: Epiphenomenalism and Cross-Realization Induction. Michael PAUEN: Is Type Identity Incompatible with Multiple Realization? Sven WALTER: Need Multiple Realizability Deter the Identity-Theorist? Achim STEPHAN: Emergentism, Irreducibility, and Downward Causation. Carl GILLETT: The Varieties of Emergence: Their Purposes, Obligations and Importance. Wim DE MUIJNCK: Causation by Relational Properties. Albert NEWEN & Rimas ČUPLINSKAS: Mental Causation: A Real Phenomenon in a Physicalistic World without Epiphenomenalism or Overdetermination. Bernd LUDWIG: Warum kommen „mentale Ursachen“ physikalischen (...) Erklärungen eigentlich nicht in die Quere? Einige grundsätzliche Überlegungen zur Verwendung des Ausdrucks „A verursacht B“ im Umkreis moderner naturwissenschaftlicher Theorien. Besprechungen/Review Articles. Buchnotizen/Critical Notes. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, Jaegwon Kim has argued that non-reductive physicalism is an inherently unstable position. In his view, the most serious problem is that non-reductive physicalism leads to type epiphenomenalism—the causal inefficacy of mental properties. Kim suggests that we can salvage mental causation by endorsing functional reduction. Given the fact that Kim’s goal in formulating functional reduction is to provide a robust account of mental causation it would be surprising if his position implies (...) eliminativism about mental properties or leads to a view that is similar to one of the versions of non-reductive physicalism that he criticizes. We will show that depending on how certain key claims are interpreted, there are reasons for thinking functional reduction has these implications, in which case either Kim fails to provide a robust account of mental causation or there is reason to suspect that some of his criticisms of non-reductive physicalism are misguided. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish two types of mental causation, called 'higher-level causation' and 'exploitation'. These notions superficially resemble the traditional problematic notions of supervenient causation and downward causation, but they are different in crucial respects. My new distinction is supported by a radically externalist competitor of the so-called Standard View of mental states, i.e. the view that mental states are brain states. I argue that on the Alternative View, the notions of 'higher-level (...) causation' and 'exploitation' can in combination dissolve the problem of mental causation as standardly discussed. (shrink)

I argue that the Causal Closure Argument (CCA) and the Explanatory Exclusion Argument (EEA) fail to show that mental causes must either be reduced/ identical to physical causes or that mental causes are epiphenomenal. I begin by granting the soundness of CCA and EEA and go on to argue that they only rule out irreducible mental efficient causes/explanations. A proponent of irreducible mental causation can, therefore, grant the soundness of CCA and EEA, provided she holds (...) mental causation/explanation to be teleological. I go on to argue that, in light of these two objections, such an account of mental causation is possible. I conclude by giving a cursory sketch of how such a picture of mental causation as non-reductive teleological causation would work. The upshot being that this general approach to mental causation, as non-reductive and non-epiphenomenal, cannot be undermined by the CCA and EEA. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to situate the early Indian (Nikāya) Buddhist notion of karmic causation within the mental causation discourse in the Western analytic tradition, which concerns causal transactions involving mental events, such as desires, beliefs, and intentions, whether the transactions are between mental events, or between mental events and physical events. Karmic causation involves actional causes, in concert with non-actional causes, and their experiential effects on the actor, in concert with (...) non-experiential effects. The problems generated by karmic causation in Buddhism overlap with those generated by mental causation in the Western analytic tradition. They include how the mental aspects relate to the physical aspects of the self, sense perception, and action, as well as how the mental and physical aspects of an actional cause relate to the experiential and non-experiential aspects of an effect on the actor. -/- To make sense of mental causation, it is crucial to understand a cluster of associated concepts such as causation, the self, sense perception, and action. Similarly, to make sense of karmic causation, it is crucial to understand a cluster of associated concepts such as dependent arising (paṭiccasamuppāda), the fivefold laws of nature (pañca-niyāma), the five aggregates (pañca-khandha), the six sense bases (Saḷayatana), action (karma), and results (vipāka). I shall discuss these concepts under the headings of causation, the self, sense perception, and action before I move on to address karmic causation in the context of the mental causation debate. (shrink)

According to a popular model of mental causation, an irreducible mental cause M1 brings about an irreducible mental effect M2 by bringing about M2's supervenience base, P2. Call this ‘the Downward Causation View’. This paper raises doubts about the Downward Causation View on grounds that M1 does not cause M2 immediately and there is no causal chain from M1 to M2. Prima facie, then, M1 does not cause M2 on this view. But a theory (...) of mental causation ought to account for how some mental phenomena cause other mental phenomena; so rival theories are to be preferred. After setting out the problem, I consider replies; all fail. (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)

Peter Menzies has developed a novel version of the exclusion principle that he claims to be compatible with the possibility of mental causation. Menzies proposes to frame the exclusion principle in terms of a difference-making account of causation, understood in counterfactual terms. His new exclusion principle appears in two formulations: upwards exclusion — which is the familiar case in which a realizing event causally excludes the event that it realizes — and, more interestingly, downward exclusion, in which (...) an event causally excludes its realizer. This paper shows that one consequence of Menzies’s proposed solution to the problem of mental causation is a ubiquitous violation of the principle of closure — a fact that forces him into a trilemma to which we see no satisfactory response. (shrink)

Recent discussions of mental causation have focused on three principles: (1) Mental properties are (sometimes) causally relevant to physical effects; (2) mental properties are not physical properties; (3) every physical event has in its causal history only physical events and physical properties. Since these principles seem to be inconsistent, solutions have focused on rejecting one or more of them. But I argue that, in spite of appearances, (1)–(3) are not inconsistent. The reason is that 'properties' is (...) used in different senses in the principles. In (1) and (3), 'properties' should be read as 'tropes' (properties here are particulars), while in (2) 'properties' should read as 'types' (properties here are universals or classes). Although mental types are distinct from physical types, every mental trope is a physical trope. This allows mental properties to be causally relevant to physical effects without violating the closed character of the physical world. (shrink)

The problem of mental causation is discussed by taking into account some recent developments in the philosophy of science. The problem is viewed from the perspective of the new interventionist theory of causation developed by Woodward. The import of the idea that causal claims involve contrastive classes in mental causation is also discussed. It is argued that mental causation is much less a problem than it has appeared to be.

My dissertation concerns the long-standing mind-body problem in a contemporary context. I investigate whether a content property of a mental state can be causally efficacious in bringing about behavior. I argue that general objections against the causal efficacy of content are not warranted. I then propose my own account of the causal efficacy of content. ;In Chapter 1, I examine the claim that the supervenience thesis renders mental causation incompatible with underlying physical causation. I argue that (...) if we understand the supervenience thesis and the concept of causation probabilistically, it turns out that the causal efficacy of the mental is compatible with that of the physical. ;In Chapter 2, I claim that given the compatibility claim established in the previous chapter, the computational theory of the mind can be understood as a causal hypothesis. I examine this hypothesis in details and Fodor's "narrow content" proposal. I argue that Fodor's proposal has a serious problem. ;In Chapter 3, I discuss individualism which implies that content is not a psychologically relevant property. I argue that individualism is in conflict with legitimate scientific practices and that there is no reason not to individuate psychological properties in terms of diachronic, causal relations. ;In Chapter 4, I investigate the screening-off argument that since content is unnecessary and redundant for the genesis of behavior, content cannot be causally efficacious. I argue that the argument is not valid. I also critically examine three accounts of the causal efficacy of content and claim that they fall short of conferring causal efficacy to content. ;In Chapter 5, I propose an account of causal efficacy which is consistent with the requirement of causal transaction via local, physical mechanism. My account is based on the notion of causal connection which is, in turn, understood as a category of token probabilistic causal significances. According to my account, content can be causally efficacious in bringing about behavior. I conclude that reasons qua reasons have causal have causal efficacy. (shrink)

Many philosophers take mental causation to be required for free will. But it has also been argued that the most popular view of the nature of mental states, i.e. non-reductive physicalism, excludes the existence of mental causation, due to what is known as the ‘exclusion argument’. In this paper, I discuss the difference-making account of mental causation proposed by [List, C., and Menzies, P. 2017. “My Brain Made Me Do It: The Exclusion Argument (...) Against Free Will, and What’s Wrong with It.” In H. Beebee, C. Hitchcock, & H. Price (eds.), Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation. Oxford Scholarship Online: Oxford University Press], who argue that their account not only solves the problem of causal exclusion but also saves free will. More precisely, they argue that it rebuts what they call ‘the Neurosceptical Argument’, the argument that if actions are caused by neural states and processes unavailable to us, there is no free will. I argue that their argument fails for two independent reasons. The first reason is that they fail to show that difference-makers are independent causes. The second reason is that physical realizers of mental states can be individuated in a way that makes both mental states and their realizers difference-makers. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the causal homogeneity of functional, mental properties against Kim’s attack. It is argued that (a) token identity is sufficient for mental causation, that (b) token identity implies a sort of functional reduction, but that (c) nonetheless functional, mental properties can be causally homogeneous despite being multiply realizable: multiple composition is sufficient for multiple realizability, but multiple composition does not prevent the realizers from having their pertinent effects in common. (...) Thus, the causal exclusion problem provides no argument for abandoning the position that there are functional, mental properties that are natural kind properties. (shrink)

Mental causation occurs when mental entities cause other mental and physical entities: seeings causing believings, itches causing scratchings, headaches causing eye twitches, and so on. The term “mental causation” is most often used to refer to the problem of mental causation, which is really a collection of problems with each possessing its own character and tradition of debate. The problem of mental causation began in earnest with an objection to Cartesian (...) dualism raised by Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia (how can immaterial minds causally interact with material bodies?) and still persists via a series of different objections raised against various views including non-reductive physicalism, anomalous monism, and psychological externalism. What unites the different problems of mental causation is their attempt to address a question of this general form: is model x of the non-causal mental-physical relationship (e.g., non-reductive physicalism) consistent with there being mental causation? A negative answer is usually taken to constitute a fatal objection to model x, but not always. There have been two major avenues of inquiry since Elizabeth’s original objection began the debate: (a) what theories of causation can tell us about the consistency of model x with mental causation; or (b) what theories about the non-causal mental-physical relationship can tell us about the consistency of model x with mental causation. Nearly every contribution in the literature on the problem of mental causation can be understood as belonging in either category (a) or (b), or as containing distinguishable elements which so belong. The most important discussions about mental causation have taken place over the last few decades, hence this entry will focus largely on work conducted in that period. Mental causation is also discussed in other areas of philosophy, such as political philosophy or ethics, but this entry will be primarily concerned with the metaphysical and philosophy of mind literature. (shrink)

Dynamical systems promise to elucidate a notion of top–down causation without violating the causal closure of physical events. This approach is particularly useful for the problem of mental causation. Since dynamical systems seek out, appropriate, and replace physical substrata needed to continue their structural pattern, the system is autonomous with respect to its components, yet the components constitute closed causal chains. But how can systems have causal power over their substrates, if each component is sufficiently caused by (...) other components? Suppose every causal relation requires background conditions, without which it is insufficient. The dynamical system is structured with a tendency to change background conditions for causal relations anytime needed substrates for the pattern's maintenance are missing; under the changed background conditions, alternative causal relations become sufficient to maintain the pattern. The system controls the background conditions under which one or another causal relation can subserve the system's overall pattern, while the components remain causally closed under their given background conditions. (shrink)