Mental Causation

Presents a comprehensive account of how the mind causes things to happen in the physical world. This book is also available as Open Access.

This book demonstrates the importance of ontology for a central debate in philosophy of mind. Mental causation seems an obvious aspect of the world. But it is hard to understand how it can happen unless we get clear about what the entities involved in the process are. An international team of contributors presents new work on this problem.

This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind--in particular, the mind-body problem, mental causation, and reductionism. This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind--in particular, the mind-body problem, mental causation, and reductionism. Kim construes the mind-body problem as that of finding a place for the mind in a world that is fundamentally physical. Among other points, he redefines the roles of supervenience and emergence in the discussion of the mind-body problem. Arguing that various contemporary accounts of mental causation are inadequate, he offers his own partially reductionist solution on the basis of a novel model of reduction. Retaining the informal tone of the lecture format, the book is clear yet sophisticated.

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.

Physicalism—the thesis that everything there is in the world, including our minds, is constituted by basic physical entities—has dominated the philosophy of mind during the last few decades. But although the conceptual foundations of the physicalist agenda—including a proper explication of notions such as ‘causation’, ‘determination’, ‘realization’ or even ‘physicalism’ itself—must be settled before more specific problems (e.g. the problems of mental causation and human agency) can be satisfactorily addressed, a comprehensive philosophical reflection on the relationships between the various key concepts of the debate on physicalism is yet missing. This book presents a range of essays on the conceptual foundations of physicalism, mental causation and human agency, written by established and leading authors in the field.

Since Descartes’s division of the human subject into mental and physical components in the seventeenth century, there has been a great deal of discussion about how—indeed, whether or not—our mental states bring about our physical behavior. Through historical and contemporary readings, this collection explores this lively and important issue. In four parts, this anthology introduces the problem of mental causation, explores the debate sparked by Donald Davidson’s anomalous monism, examines Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument for the view that qualia are epiphenomenal, and investigates attempts to employ the controversial concept of supervenience to explain mental causation.

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.

How do mental events such as choices and decisions lead to physical action? The problem of mental causation is one of the most important and intriguing philosophical issues of our time and has been at the centre of debates in the philosophy of mind for the past fifty years. In opposition to the recent wave of reductionist theories, this book argues that it is possible to account for mental causation within a nonreductive framework as it adopts a broadly Davidsonian approach to mental causation: reasons cause actions because they are identical to physical events. This work then defends this approach from the frequently raised criticism that it entails epiphenomenalism - the inefficacy of the mental. Moreover, Mental Causation moves beyond Davidson's views by reconsidering the question of whether reasons causally explain actions, arguing in opposition to Davidson, that explanations appealing to reasons represent a distinct category of explanation from causal explanation. Essential reading for anyone interested in debates about mental causation, this is an excellent text for senior undergraduates, graduate students, and professional philosophers.