more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
If reductionism goes, so does the intelligibility of mental causation.
Gist of Idea
Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling
Source
Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.237)
Book Ref
Kim,Jaegwon: 'Philosophy of Mind' [Westview 1998], p.237
A Reaction
Quite so. Substance dualism turns mental causation into a miracle, but property dualism is really no better. If no laws connect brain and mind, you have no account. I don't see how 'reasons are causes' (Davidson) helps at all.
14042 | The soul cannot be incorporeal, because then it could neither act nor be acted upon [Epicurus] |
20816 | A body is required for anything to have causal relations [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
3941 | How can that which is unthinking be a cause of thought? [Berkeley] |
22100 | Experienced time means no two mental moments are ever alike [Bergson] |
6383 | Cause unites our picture of the universe; without it, mental and physical will separate [Davidson] |
6620 | Davidson sees identity as between events, not states, since they are related in causation [Davidson, by Lowe] |
3438 | Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level [Kim] |
3440 | Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling [Kim] |
7856 | It is absurd to think that physical effects are caused twice, so conscious causes must be physical [Papineau] |
4073 | Overdetermination occurs if two events cause an effect, when each would have caused it alone [Crane] |
7012 | If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil] |
4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
2535 | The main argument for physicalism is its simple account of causation [Sturgeon] |