Nonreductive Physicalism and the Causal Powers of the Mental

Nonreductive physicalism (NRP) is the metaphysical thesis that claims that all the entities of our world constitute an ontological and causal network that is fundamentally physical and, however, cannot be reduced to nor fully explained by the laws, properties, and concepts that the basic physical science can discover and articulate. My purpose in this paper is to analyze the proposal of NRP and to argue that this philosophical approach should be understood in terms of macrophysicalism, that is, emergentism. My claim is that this version of physicalism is a philosophical theory that allows us to understand the coherence and irreducibility of the different scientific approaches, from microphysics and chemistry to psychology and sociology, trying to explain the various levels of organization of our empirical world. In the first part I analyze the standard (that is, the functionalist) formulation of NRP, which claims that although the higher level facts metaphysically supervene on the facts of the lower levels, ultimately on the microphysical facts, they cannot be reduced to the latter because of their multiple realizability. I explain the kind of criticisms that in recent years this perspective has received about its capability to account for the causal irreducibility of the higher level properties, a problem which arises from the assumption of the metaphysical supervenience of the macro-properties on their microphysical realizers or conditions; an assumption that is plausibly an empirically false claim. Then, I introduce emergentism or macrophysicalism as a nonreductive physicalist proposal which claims that the higher level properties cannot be reduced to their lower level bases because although they are metaphysically dependent on the latter, are not determined by these. Finally, I explain the downward causal influence that on this view the higher level properties should have on the lower causal processes.

European Journal of Philosophy, 2009

In recent years Jaegwon Kim has offered an argument – the ‘supervenience argument’ – to show that supervenient mental properties, construed as second- order properties distinct from their first-order realizers, do not have causal powers of their own. In response, several philosophers have argued that if Kim’s argument is sound, it generalizes in such a way as to condemn to causal impotency all properties above the level of basic physics. This paper discusses Kim’s supervenience argument in the context of his reply to this so-called ‘generalization argument’. In particular, the paper focuses on the level/order distinction, to which Kim appeals in his reply to the generalization argument, and on the relation between this distinction and two varieties of functionalism, ‘realizer’ vs. ‘role’ functionalism. The author argues that a proper analysis of the notions of levels and orders undermines Kim’s response to the generalization argument, and suggests that Kim’s reductionist strategy for vindicating the causal powers of mental properties is better served if mental properties are construed as first-order properties, as realizer-functionalism recommends.

2022

The main idea of this thesis is multi-descriptional physicalism. According to it, only physical entities are elements of our ontology, and there are different ways to describe them. Higher-level vocabularies (e.g., mental, neurological, biological) truly describe reality. Sentences about higher-level entities are made true by physical entities. Every chapter will develop multi-descriptional physicalism or defend it from objections. In chapter 1, I will propose a new conceptual reductive account that conceptually reduces higher-level entities to physical entities. This conceptual reductive account combines resources from Heil’s truthmaker theory and either a priori physicalism or a posteriori physicalism. In chapter 2, I apply this conceptual reductive account to various debates. Physicalism, the multiple-realisability argument, the prototype theory of concepts, and truthmaker explanations will be discussed. In chapter 3, I will argue that a major aim of metaphysics should be to discover which entities are fundamental and explain why they suffice for the existence of derivative entities. In chapter 4, I will propose a new way to explain why sentences apparently about composite objects are true even though there are no composite objects. It combines resources from Cameron’s truthmaker theory and van Inwagen’s paraphrase strategy. In chapter 5, I will argue that the intuition that the mind and the body are very different does not show that the mind is distinct from the body. This intuition can be explained away by mentioning our dispositions to give non-physical explanations when we are ignorant of physical facts. In chapter 6, I will examine two arguments for the existence of a metaphysically independent level, and I will argue that only a modified version of one of them succeeds. I will argue that methodological principles support the view that there is a metaphysically independent level.

2018

The main purpose of this monograph is to respond to the reiterated criticisms that some reductionist philosophers, especially Jaegwon Kim and David Papineau, have developed of the non-reductive physicalist explanation of the causal power or relevance of the higher level or special sciences’ properties; properties of sciences as chemistry, biology and, especially, psychology. I argue that most of contemporary analytic philosophy is mistaken in assuming a physicalist proposal on the basis of the metaphysical supervenience theory of the higher level properties on their microphysical bases, the theory that we call microphysicalism, because this proposal has not only deep empirical but conceptual problems. Because the most accepted version of non-reductive physicalism – the current functionalist proposal – is committed to microphysicalism, Kim and the reductionists are right in their conceptual criticisms of the inability to account for the reality and irreducibility of the causal powers of the higher level properties within this physicalist framework. But they are wrong in claiming that the failure of the current functionalist proposal implies a general failure of any non-reductive physicalism. Emergentism is articulated as a type macrophysicalist theory because it considers that the special properties are metaphysically dependent on but not metaphysically determined by and, therefore, not reducible to their microphysical bases. This proposal claims that higher level causation is articulated combining the under-determination of the lower level causal processes, along with the instantiation of higher level causal properties and laws that constrain and select from the different and under-determined causal alternatives that the properties and laws that govern the lower processes leave open. As a final and general conclusion we can say that macrophysicalism or emergentism is not only a coherent and well suited conceptual proposal about the causal functioning of the different levels of composition and organization of our physical world, but that as far as we know it can be its most plausible empirical articulation.

Axiomathes, 2003

philosophy-online.de

Kim's so-called "Supervenience Argument" is one of the most important arguments against nonreductive physicalism, the position that dominates current philosophy of mind. Kim has formulated various versions of this argument since the late eighties, and in his latest book (Kim 2005), he has defended it against various criticisms that have been raised by his opponents. The current paper assesses Kim's response to one of the most important criticisms, the so-called "Generalization Argument" according to which, if sound, the Supervenience Argument would not only show that there is no mental causation, but also that there is no biological, no chemical, no geological causation etc.

The Philosophical Quarterly, 2009

We provide a formulation of physicalism, and show that this is to be favoured over alternative formulations. Much of the literature on physicalism assumes without argument that there is a fundamental level to reality, and we show that a consideration of the levels problem and its implications for physicalism tells in favour of the form of physicalism proposed here. Its key elements are, first, that the empirical and substantive part of physicalism amounts to a prediction that physics will not posit new entities solely for the purpose of accounting for mental phenomena, nor new entities with essentially mental characteristics such as propositional attitudes or intentions; secondly, that physicalism can safely make do with no more than a weak global formulation of supervenience.

… science and us: philosophy and complexity …, 2007