About this topic
Summary Traditionally conceived, the exclusion problem is faced by non-reductive materialist views which hold that mental causes are distinct from physical causes. Many think that if materialism is true, then every physical effect must have a sufficient physical cause; but in that case the purportedly distinct mental causes can appear to be "excluded" as genuine causes because the physical causes "already" do all the "causal work". Exclusion can work both ways - some have argued that mental causes exclude physical causes - but most have thought that it is mental causes that are under threat. Some have taken the exclusion argument to demonstrate the falsity of non-reductive materialism, but most have tried to defend non-reductive materialism by contending that the exclusion argument is unsound.
Key works The exclusion argument was first proposed by Norman Malcolm (1968). After a brief flurry of interest in Malcolm's argument (e.g. Goldman 1969; Martin 1971), discussion of the issue largely died off until Jaegwon Kim resurrected the exclusion argument and used it as the central component of his sustained critique of non-reductive materialism (1989; 1998; 2005). Subsequent debates have had two main focal points: examining either the "horizontal" or "vertical" aspects of the non-reductive model (this distinction was first drawn in Donaldson 2019). The horizontal approach concerns the nature of the mental-physical causal relation (e.g. Horgan 1997; Crisp & Warfield 2001; Kim 2007; Loewer 2007; List & Menzies 2009; Zhong 2014). The vertical approach concerns the explaining of the holding of the mental-physical supervenience relation (e.g. Yablo 1992; Shoemaker 2007; Paul 2007; Walter 2007; Bennett 2008Wilson 2009; Pereboom 2011).
Introductions Sophie Gibb's introduction to the volume she co-edited with Lowe and Ingthorsson (2013) is a good place to start, and that volume also contains much of the state of the art thinking on the exclusion problem. Kim 2005, or Kim 2007 alongside Loewer 2007, are also a good way in. Enyclopedia entries include Yoo 2007, Robb & Heil 2008 - although these survey the broader issue of mental causation, of which the exclusion problem is just one part.
Related

Contents
699 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 699
  1. Exclusion Excluded.Brad Weslake - manuscript
    I argue that an independently attractive account of causation and causal explanation provides a principled resolution of the exclusion problem.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  2. A structure for mental causation.Anthony Dardis - 2009
    This paper suggests a structure that makes room for a class of solutions to the mental causation problem.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Conspectus of Jaegwon Kim’s paper, 'Mental Causation and Consciousness: Our Two Mind-body Problems'.Peter Sjöstedt-H. -
    I summarize Jaegwon Kim's (2001/5) paper on the detrimental affect 'mental causation' has on physicalism.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. The disturbing matter of downward causation: A study of the exclusion argument and its causal-explanatory presuppositions.Øistein Schmidt Galaaen - manuscript
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. Intention and Mental Causation.Rémi Clot-Goudard - forthcoming - Foundations of Science.
    Many philosophers nowadays take for granted a causalist view of action explanation, according to which intentional action is a movement caused by mental antecedents. For them, “the possibility of human agency evidently requires that our mental states – our beliefs, desires, and intentions – have causal effects in the physical world: in voluntary actions our beliefs and desires, or intentions and decisions, must somehow cause our limbs to move in appropriate ways” (Jaegwon Kim, Mind in a Physical World, Cambridge (MA), (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. Different aspects of consciousness explained by distinct biophysical processes.Wieslaw L. Galus - forthcoming - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.
    The great task of cognitive science is to explain the phenomenal, first-person experience through the brain’s biophysical processes. This articles takes up this challenge by presenting the theory of how to reconcile the distinguishable properties of a material and mental processes. For this purpose, I describe how knowledge representations arise and how they can correlate with the emotions that accompany their formation. These associations can lead to first-person sense impressions, that is, qualia, which are the gist of phenomenal awareness. I (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. The Disappearing Agent as an Exclusion Problem.Johannes Himmelreich - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    The disappearing agent problem is an argument in the metaphysics of agency. Proponents of the agent-causal approach argue that the rival event-causal approach fails to account for the fact that an agent is active. This paper examines an analogy between this disappearing agent problem and the exclusion problem in the metaphysics of mind. I develop the analogy between these two problems and survey existing solutions. I suggest that some solutions that have received significant attention in response to the exclusion problem (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. A nonreductive physicalist libertarian free will.Dwayne Moore - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that the same agential states can cause different possible actions. Nonreductive physicalism is, roughly, the view that mental states cause actions to occur, while these actions also have sufficient physical causes. Though libertarian free will and nonreductive physicalism have overlapping subject matter, and while libertarian free will is currently trending at the same time as nonreductive physicalism is a dominant metaphysical posture, there are few sustained expositions of a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Mental Causation.Rebekah L. H. Rice - forthcoming - In Kevin Timpe, Meghan Griffith & Neil Levy (eds.), Routledge Companion to Free Will. Routledge.
  10. Power for the Mental as Such.David Robb - forthcoming - In Jonathan D. Jacobs (ed.), Causal Powers. Oxford University Press.
    An adequate solution to the problem of mental causation should deliver, not just the efficacy of mental properties, but the efficacy of mental properties as such, of mentality in its own right. But this appears to block an identity solution from the outset. Any property that’s both mental and physical, the argument goes, has a dual nature, and this just reintroduces the problem of mental causation, now framed in terms of these two natures. But a powers ontology promises to save (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  11. Could Mental Causation Be Invisible?David Robb - forthcoming - In Alexander Carruth, S. C. Gibb & John Heil (eds.), The Metaphysics of E.J. Lowe. Oxford University Press.
    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 (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  12. Mental Causation for Standard Dualists.Bram Vaassen - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
    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 (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. The Timing Problem for Dualist Accounts of Mental Causation.Ben White - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-20.
    Setting aside all exclusion-style worries about the redundancy of postulating additional, non-physical mental causes for effects that can already be explained in purely physical terms, dualists who treat mental properties as supervening on physical properties still face a further problem: in cases of mental-to-mental causation, they cannot avoid positing an implausibly coincidental coordination in the timing of the distinct causal processes terminating, respectively, in the mental effect and its physical base. I argue that this problem arises regardless of whether one (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. The Subset View of Realization and the Part-Whole Problem.Takeshi Akiba - 2024 - Acta Analytica 39 (1):97-115.
    According to the subset view of realization, a property realizes another if the causal powers of the latter are a subset of those of the former. Against this view, some authors (in particular, Kevin Morris and Paul Audi) have argued that it has an untenable consequence that realizing properties are less fundamental than the properties they realize, because the subset view characterizes realized properties as parts (subsets) of their realizers whereas it is generally true that a part is prior to (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Causalità del mentale: dall'argomento di Kim ai qualia in una prospettiva fisicalista.Leonardo Capitaneo - 2023 - Dissertation, Università Degli Studi di Torino
    Lo scopo dell’elaborato è presentare il problema della causalità del mentale e cercare di dare una soluzione fisicalista al problema che possa includere anche i qualia, da sempre considerati come l’ultima difesa a favore dell’irriducibilità della mente al fisico. Il primo capitolo ha il compito di trovare la teoria metafisica del mentale migliore che riesca sia a rendere conto della causalità del mentale e sia a resistere all’argomento di Kim. Dopo aver esposto in dettaglio l’argomento di Kim sono affrontati i (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. What's Wrong With Nonreductive Physicalism? The Exclusion Problem Reconsidered.Kevin Morris - 2023 - ProtoSociology 39:19-34.
    Jaegwon Kim argued that nonreductive physicalism faces the “exclusion problem” for higher-level causation, mental causation in particular. Roughly, the charge is that given the presumptive ubiquity of physical causation, there cannot be irreducible mental causes for physical effects. Since there are mental causes, Kim concluded that nonreductive physicalism should be rejected in favor of a more reductionist alternative according to which mental causes are just physical causes differently described. But why should mental causes be “excluded” in this way? Unfortunately, Kim (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. Anti-reductionist Interventionism.Reuben Stern & Benjamin Eva - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (1):241-267.
    Kim’s causal exclusion argument purports to demonstrate that the non-reductive physicalist must treat mental properties (and macro-level properties in general) as causally inert. A number of authors have attempted to resist Kim’s conclusion by utilizing the conceptual resources of Woodward’s interventionist conception of causation. The viability of these responses has been challenged by Gebharter, who argues that the causal exclusion argument is vindicated by the theory of causal Bayesian networks (CBNs). Since the interventionist conception of causation relies crucially on CBNs (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  18. Proportionality, Abstract Causation, and the Exclusion Problem.Alexey Aliyev - 2022 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 30 (2):127-143.
    A considerable number of philosophers are attracted to what might be called ‘causal type-abstractionism’ – the view that photographs, symphonies, models of cars, novels, flags, and other multiply i...
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. Physicalism, Closure, and the Structure of Causal Arguments for Physicalism: A Naturalistic Formulation of the Physical.Hamed Bikaraan-Behesht - 2022 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (4):1081-1096.
    Physicalism is the idea that everything either is physical or is nothing over and above the physical. For this formulation of physicalism to have determinate content, it should be identified what the “physical” refers to; i.e. the body problem. Some other closely related theses, especially the ones employed in the causal arguments for different versions of physicalism, and more especially the causal closure thesis, are also subject to the body problem. In this paper, I do two things. First, I explore (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  20. Why incompatibilism about mental causation is incompatible with non-reductive physicalism.Jonas Christensen & Umut Baysan - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (5):546-568.
    ABSTRACT The exclusion problem is meant to show that non-reductive physicalism leads to epiphenomenalism: if mental properties are not identical with physical properties, then they are not causally efficacious. Defenders of a difference-making account of causation suggest that the exclusion problem can be solved because mental properties can be difference-making causes of physical effects. Here, we focus on what we dub an incompatibilist implementation of this general strategy and argue against it from a non-reductive physicalist perspective. Specifically, we argue that (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  21. Mental Causation, Autonomy and Action Theory.Dwayne Moore - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (1):53-73.
    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 (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  22. Causal Exclusion and Ontic Vagueness.Kenneth Silver - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (1):56-69.
    The Causal Exclusion Problem is raised in many domains, including in the metaphysics of macroscopic objects. If there is a complete explanation of macroscopic effects in terms of the microscopic entities that compose macroscopic objects, then the efficacy of the macroscopic will be threatened with exclusion. I argue that we can avoid the problem if we accept that macroscopic objects are ontically vague. Then, it is indeterminate which collection of microscopic entities compose them, and so information about microscopic entities is (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  23. Exclusion, subset realization, and part‐whole relations.Wenjun Zhang - 2022 - Ratio 35 (1):5-15.
    The subset realization view proposes to solve the causal exclusion problem of non‐reductive mental instances by taking the mental instance as a part of its physical realizer. Many philosophers have argued that such a part‐whole relation will undermine physicalist realization because parts are ontologically prior to their wholes and the subset view is thus flawed. I argue that the relation that the subset view should propose is different from the ordinary part‐whole relation. What they should propose is another kind of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  24. Trope Mental Causation: Still Not Qua Mental.Wenjun Zhang - 2022 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8.
    A popular solution to the causal exclusion problem in the non-reductive physicalist camp is the trope identity solution. But this solution is haunted by the “quausation problem” which charges that the trope only confers causal powers qua physical, not qua mental. Although proponents of the trope solution have responded to the problem by denying the existence of properties of tropes, I do not find their reply satisfactory. Rather, I believe they have missed the core presupposition behind the quausation problem. I (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Rejecting epiphobia.Umut Baysan - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):2773-2791.
    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 (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  26. Jessica M. Wilson, "Metaphysical Emergence.". [REVIEW]Christopher Fruge - 2021 - Philosophy in Review 41 (3):221-223.
  27. List and Menzies on High‐Level Causation.Jens Jager - 2021 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 102 (4):570-591.
    I raise two objections against Christian List and Peter Menzies' influential account of high-level causation. Improving upon some of Stephen Yablo's earlier work, I develop an alternative theory which evades both objections. The discussion calls into question List and Menzies' main contention, namely, that the exclusion principle, applied to difference-making, is false.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  28. Circumnavigating the causal pairing problem with hylomorphism and the integrated information theory of consciousness.Matthew Owen - 2021 - Synthese (S11):2829-2851.
    The causal pairing problem allegedly renders nonphysical minds causally impotent. This article demonstrates how a dualist view I call neo-Thomistic hylomorphism can circumnavigate the causal pairing problem. After explicating the problem and hylomorphism, I provide an account of causal pairing that appeals to a foundational tenet of hylomorphism. Subsequently, I suggest that a prominent view of consciousness in theoretical neuroscience—the integrated information theory—can learn from hylomorphism and likewise account for causal pairing.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  29. Causal Exclusion without Causal Sufficiency.Bram Vaassen - 2021 - Synthese 198:10341-10353.
    Some non-reductionists claim that so-called ‘exclusion arguments’ against their position rely on a notion of causal sufficiency that is particularly problematic. I argue that such concerns about the role of causal sufficiency in exclusion arguments are relatively superficial since exclusionists can address them by reformulating exclusion arguments in terms of physical sufficiency. The resulting exclusion arguments still face familiar problems, but these are not related to the choice between causal sufficiency and physical sufficiency. The upshot is that objections to the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  30. Dualism and Exclusion.Bram Vaassen - 2021 - Erkenntnis 86 (3):543-552.
    Many philosophers argue that exclusion arguments cannot exclude non-reductionist physicalist mental properties from being causes without excluding properties that are patently causal as well. List and Stoljar (2017) recently argued that a similar response to exclusion arguments is also available to dualists, thereby challenging the predominant view that exclusion arguments undermine dualist theories of mind. In particular, List and Stoljar maintain that exclusion arguments against dualism require a premise that states that, if a property is metaphysically distinct from the sufficient (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  31. Mental causation as joint causation.Chiwook Won - 2021 - Synthese 198 (5):4917-4937.
    This paper explores and defends the idea that mental properties and their physical bases jointly cause their physical effects. The paper evaluates the view as an emergentist response to the exclusion problem, comparing it with a competing nonreductive physicalist solution, the compatibilist solution, and argues that the joint causation view is more defensible than commonly supposed. Specifically, the paper distinguishes two theses of closure, Strong Closure and Weak Closure, two causal exclusion problems, the overdetermination problem and the supervenience problem, and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  32. Interventionism for the Intentional Stance: True Believers and Their Brains.Markus I. Eronen - 2020 - Topoi 39 (1):45-55.
    The relationship between psychological states and the brain remains an unresolved issue in philosophy of psychology. One appealing solution that has been influential both in science and in philosophy is Dennett’s concept of the intentional stance, according to which beliefs and desires are real and objective phenomena, but not necessarily states of the brain. A fundamental shortcoming of this approach is that it does not seem to leave any causal role for beliefs and desires in influencing behavior. In this paper, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  33. Mental Causation: A Counterfactual Theory.Thomas Kroedel - 2020 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    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 (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  34. Reducing Uncertainty: Understanding the Information-Theoretic Origins of Consciousness.Garrett Mindt - 2020 - Dissertation, Central European University
    Ever since the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1996, 1995) first entered the scene in the debate over consciousness many have taken it to show the limitations of a scientific or naturalist explanation of consciousness. The hard problem is the problem of explaining why there is any experience associated with certain physical processes, that is, why there is anything it is like associated with such physical processes? The character of one’s experience doesn’t seem to be entailed by physical processes and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  35. The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness.Matthew Owen - 2020 - Entropy 22 (8).
    Mental causation is vitally important to the integrated information theory (IIT), which says consciousness exists since it is causally efficacious. While it might not be directly apparent, metaphysical commitments have consequential entailments concerning the causal efficacy of consciousness. Commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and the nature of causation determine which problem(s) a view of consciousness faces with respect to mental causation. Analysis of mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind has brought several problems to the fore: the alleged lack (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  36. An exclusion problem for epiphenomenalist dualism.Bradford Saad - 2020 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 9 (4):247-256.
    The chief motivation for epiphenomenalist dualism is its promise to solve dualism’s causal exclusion problem without inducing causal overdetermination or violations of the causal closure of the physical. This paper argues that epiphenomenalist dualism is itself susceptible to an exclusion problem. The problem exploits symmetries of determination and influence generated by a wide class of physical theories. Further, I argue that there is an interference effect between solving epiphenomenalist dualism's exclusion problem and using epiphenomenalist dualism as a solution to the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  37. A grounding physicalist solution to the causal exclusion problem.Robin Stenwall - 2020 - Synthese 198 (12):11775-11795.
    Remember how Kim Mental causation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993b) used to argue against non-reductive physicalism to the effect that it cannot accommodate the causal efficacy of the mental? The argument was that if physicalists accept the causal closure of the physical, they are faced with an exclusion problem. In the original version of the argument, the dependence holding between the mental and the physical was cashed out in terms of supervenience. Due to the work or Fine and others, we have (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  38. Mental Causation, Exclusive Argument, and Non-reductive Physicalism.Xiaoyang Wang & Yuchen Wang - 2020 - Journal of Human Cognition 4 (2):53-67.
    Jeagwon Kim's exclusion argument is a well-known argument against non-reductive physicalism in the contemporary debate on mental causation. In this essay, we will first discuss two versions of the exclusion argument: the simple version and the sophisticated version. Secondly, we will take a conservative strategy to defend the kind of non-reductive physicalism initiated by Donald Davidson: the Token Identity Theory. Namely, we will explain where Kim failed to appropriately understand Davidson's work and argue that the simple version and the sophisticated (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  39. Review of Physicalism Deconstructed: Levels of Reality and the Mind-Body Problem, by Kevin Morris. [REVIEW]Jessica M. Wilson - 2020 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1.
    Morris’s book is a valuable contribution. For the reasons below, I don’t think his case against NRP succeeds, and his version of EP faces a serious difficulty. Even so, this is an admirably clear, subtle, and well-informed brief, and philosophers interested in the structure of natural reality have much to gain from Morris’s insightful discussion and argumentation.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  40. Neural Synchrony and the Causal Efficacy of Consciousness.David Yates - 2020 - Topoi 39 (5):1057-1072.
    The purpose of this paper is to address a well-known dilemma for physicalism. If mental properties are type identical to physical properties, then their causal efficacy is secure, but at the cost of ruling out mentality in creatures very different to ourselves. On the other hand, if mental properties are multiply realizable, then all kinds of creatures can instantiate them, but then they seem to be causally redundant. The causal exclusion problem depends on the widely held principle that realized properties (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  41. Taking Emergentism Seriously.Lei Zhong - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (1):31-46.
    The Exclusion Argument has afflicted non-reductionists for decades. In this article, I attempt to show that emergentism—the view that mental entities can downwardly cause physical entities in a non-overdetermining way—is the most plausible approach to solving the exclusion problem. The emergentist approach is largely absent in contemporary philosophy of mind, because emergentism rejects the Causal Closure of Physics, a doctrine embraced by almost all physicalists. This article, however, challenges the consensus on causal closure and defends a physicalist version of emergentism. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  42. Three Versions of Physical Closure.Lei Zhong - 2020 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 97 (4):640-658.
    The Exclusion Argument has been regarded as the most powerful challenge to non-reductive physicalism. This argument presupposes a crucial thesis, Causal Closure of the Physical, which asserts that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause. Although this thesis is widely accepted in contemporary philosophy of mind, philosophers say surprisingly little about what notion of physical entities should be adopted in the context. In this article, the author distinguishes between three versions of Closure that appeal to a narrow, a moderate, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. Exclusion endures: How compatibilism allows dualists to bypass the causal closure argument.Christopher Devlin Brown - 2019 - Analysis 79 (4):587-594.
    Jaegwon Kim maintains that his ‘exclusion argument’ forces us to accept reductive physicalism, which identifies mental and other high-level properties of the world with lower-level properties, over nonreductive physicalism, which avoids such identifications. According to Kim, the exclusion argument shows that any nonreductive view leads to either epiphenomenalism or unacceptable overdetermination of physical effects by physical causes. However, a popular nonreductive physicalist approach called ‘compatibilism’ aims to show that physicalism need not collapse high-level properties into lower-level physical. Compatibilism attempts to (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. Causal closure of the physical, mental causation, and physics.Dejan R. Dimitrijević - 2019 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (1):1-22.
    The argument from causal closure of the physical is usually considered the most powerful argument in favor of the ontological doctrine of physicalism. Many authors, most notably Papineau, assume that CCP implies that physicalism is supported by physics. I demonstrate, however, that physical science has no bias in the ontological debate between proponents of physicalism and dualism. I show that the arguments offered for CCP are effective only against the accounts of mental causation based on the action of the mental (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  45. Causal closure of the physical, mental causation, and physics.Dejan R. Dimitrijević - 2019 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (1):1-22.
    The argument from causal closure of the physical is usually considered the most powerful argument in favor of the ontological doctrine of physicalism. Many authors, most notably Papineau, assume that CCP implies that physicalism is supported by physics. I demonstrate, however, that physical science has no bias in the ontological debate between proponents of physicalism and dualism. I show that the arguments offered for CCP are effective only against the accounts of mental causation based on the action of the mental (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  46. Vertical Versus Horizontal: What is really at issue in the exclusion problem?John Donaldson - 2019 - Synthese (2):1-16.
    I outline two ways of reading what is at issue in the exclusion problem faced by non-reductive physicalism, the “vertical” versus “horizontal”, and argue that the vertical reading is to be preferred to the horizontal. I discuss the implications: that those who have pursued solutions to the horizontal reading of the problem have taken a wrong turn.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. Vertical versus horizontal: what is really at issue in the exclusion problem?John Donaldson - 2019 - Synthese 198 (2):1381-1396.
    I outline two ways of reading what is at issue in the exclusion problem faced by non-reductive physicalism, the “vertical” versus “horizontal”, and argue that the vertical reading is to be preferred to the horizontal. I discuss the implications: that those who have pursued solutions to the horizontal reading of the problem have taken a wrong turn.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. Emergentism and Sadra’s psychology; a common physicalistic challenge.Mahdi Homazadeh - 2019 - Asian Philosophy 29 (3):221-230.
    This paper first explores in detail a regenerated theory in philosophy of mind, known among contemporary philosophers as ‘emergentism’. By distinguishing strong and weak versions of the theory, I explain two important explanatory challenges presented by physicalists against this theory. In the following, I provide a brief overview of Sadr al-Muta’allihin’s theory of the incipience and degrees of the soul, examining similarities and differences between this theory and strong emergentism. Then, underlining the main aspects of similarity between the two theories, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  49. Mary does not learn anything new: Applying Kim's critique of mental causation to the knowledge argument and the problem of consciousness.Adam Khayat - 2019 - Stance 2019 (1):45-55.
    Within the discourse surrounding mind-body interaction, mental causation is intimately associated with non-reductive physicalism. However, such a theory holds two opposing views: that all causal properties and relations can be explicated by physics and that special sciences have an explanatory role. Jaegwon Kim attempts to deconstruct this problematic contradiction by arguing that it is untenable for non-reductive physicalists to explain human behavior by appeal to mental properties. In combination, Kim’s critique of mental causation and the phenomenal concept strategy serves as (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  50. Problems with the "Problems" with psychophysical causation.Noah McKay - 2019 - Stance 12 (1):33-43.
    In this essay, I defend a mind-body dualism, according to which human minds are immaterial substances that exercise non-redundant causal powers over bodies, against the notorious problem of psychophysical causation. I explicate and reply to three formulations of the problem: (i) the claim that, on dualism, psychophysical causation is inconsistent with physical causal closure, (ii) the claim that psychophysical causation on the dualist view is intolerably mysterious, and (iii) Jaegwon Kim’s claim that dualism fails to account for causal pairings. Ultimately, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 699