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Mental Causation (mental + causation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

Mental Causation and Mental Properties

DIALECTICA, Issue 1 2005
Michael Esfeld
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. [source]

Mental Causation: The Mind-Body Problem.

METAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2010
By Anthony Dardis
First page of article [source]

Functionalism, Mental Causation, and the Problem of Metaphysically Necessary Effects,

NOUS, Issue 2 2006
Robert D. Rupert
First page of article [source]

II,Control Variables and Mental Causation

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY (HARDBACK), Issue 1pt1 2010
John Campbell
I introduce the notion of a ,control variable' which gives us a way of seeing how mental causation could be an unproblematic case of causation in general, rather than being some sui generis form of causation. Psychological variables may be the control variables for a system for which there are no physical control variables, even in a deterministic physical world. That explains how there can be psychological causation without physical causation, even in a deterministic physical world. [source]

Mental Causation and Mental Properties

DIALECTICA, Issue 1 2005
Michael Esfeld
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. [source]

The Causal Exclusion Puzzle

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2002
David Pineda
The article is divided into two parts. The first part offers a careful reconstruction and detailed discussion of the argument of causal exclusion, as well as of the implications it has for physicalism. In its second part the article examines two important objections to the causal exclusion argument: the generalization objection, which holds that the argument is unacceptable since it confers causal efficacy only to ultimate basic properties, which arguably might not exist; and Yablo's objection, according to which underlying the argument of causal exclusion there is a principle of causal parsimony which leads to strong counterintuitive results and should therefore be abandoned. The article offers grounds for rejecting both objections as well as a new diagnosis of the problem for mental causation generated by the causal exclusion argument. [source]

II,Control Variables and Mental Causation

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY (HARDBACK), Issue 1pt1 2010
John Campbell
I introduce the notion of a ,control variable' which gives us a way of seeing how mental causation could be an unproblematic case of causation in general, rather than being some sui generis form of causation. Psychological variables may be the control variables for a system for which there are no physical control variables, even in a deterministic physical world. That explains how there can be psychological causation without physical causation, even in a deterministic physical world. [source]