Mental Causation and Ontology

Mental Causation and Ontology PDF Author: S. C. Gibb
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199603774
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
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.

Mental Causation and Ontology

Mental Causation and Ontology PDF Author: S. C. Gibb
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199603774
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
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.

Beyond Conceptual Dualism

Beyond Conceptual Dualism PDF Author: Giuseppe Vicari
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9042024666
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
This book is a systematic analysis of John R. Searle's philosophy of mind. Searle's view of mind, as a set of subjective and biologically embodied processes, can account for our being part of nature qua mindful beings. This model finds support in neuroscience and offers reliable solutions to the problems of consciousness, mental causation, and the self.

Physicalism and Mental Causation

Physicalism and Mental Causation PDF Author: Sven Walter
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845405838
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
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.

Mental Causation

Mental Causation PDF Author: Jens Harbecke
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110324849
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
This work is a systematic investigation of a range of solutions offered today for the philosophical problem of mental causation. The premises constituting the problem are analyzed before a survey is developed of the most popular theories on mental causation. It is demonstrated in detail why most of these canonical solutions must be considered deficient. In a third part, the 'new compatibilist’s' approach to mental causation is explored, which is characterized by assertion of a non-identity-but-non-distinctness principle. The last part aims to offer an alternative solution to the problem. On the basis of a certain set of counterfactual conditionals, which are jointly taken to provide a definition of 'causal proportionality' that improves the existing definitions, it is shown that a specific, and hitherto widely neglected, version of causal overdeterminationism must be considered the most successful solution to the problem of mental causation.

Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation

Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation PDF Author: Michele Paolini Paoletti
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317271440
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Downward causation plays a fundamental role in many theories of metaphysics and philosophy of mind. It is strictly connected with many topics in philosophy, including but not limited to: emergence, mental causation, the nature of causation, the nature of causal powers and dispositions, laws of nature, and the possibility of ontological and epistemic reductions. Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation brings together experts from different fields—including William Bechtel, Stewart Clark and Tom Lancaster, Carl Gillett, John Heil, Robin F. Hendry, Max Kistler, Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum —who delve into classic and unexplored lines of philosophical inquiry related to downward causation. It critically assesses the possibility of downward causation given different ontological assumptions and explores the connection between downward causation and the metaphysics of causation and dispositions. Finally, it presents different cases of downward causation in empirical fields such as physics, chemistry, biology and the neurosciences. This volume is both a useful introduction and a collection of original contributions on this fascinating and hotly debated philosophical topic.

Dependencies, Connections, and Other Relations

Dependencies, Connections, and Other Relations PDF Author: Wim de Muijnck
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401701210
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
This work covers, in its subsequent parts, ontology, the metaphysics of causation, and the philosophy of mind. It provides a firm theoretical basis for believing that in our all-physical world mental causation is perfectly real, and that it can be understood.

Causal Powers

Causal Powers PDF Author: Jonathan D. Jacobs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198796579
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Causal powers are ubiquitous. Electrons are negatively charged; they have the power to repel other electrons. Water is a solvent; it has the power to dissolve salt. We use concepts of causal powers and their relatives-dispositions, capacities, abilities, and so on-to describe the world around us, both in everyday life and in scientific practice. But what is it about the world that makes such descriptions apt? This collection brings together new and important work by both emerging scholars and those who helped shape the field on the nature of causal powers, and the connections between causal powers and other phenomena within metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind. Contributors discuss how one who takes causal powers to be in some sense irreducible should think about laws of nature, scientific practice, causation, modality, space and time, persistence, and the metaphysics of mind.

Mental Causation

Mental Causation PDF Author: Jens Harbecke
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783938793947
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
This work systematically investigates a range of solutions forthe philosophical problem of mental causation. The premisesconstituting the problem are analyzed, then a survey is developedof the most popular theories on mental causation. Harbeckedemonstrates why most of these canonical solutions must beconsidered deficient. In a third part, the "new compatibilists"approach to mental causation is explored, which is characterizedby assertion of a non-identity-but-non-distinctness principle.The last part offers an alternative solution to the problem. Onthe basis of a certain set of counterfactual conditionals, which arejointly taken to provide a definition of "causal proportionality"that improves the existing definitions, it is shown that a specific,and hitherto widely neglected, version of causal overdeterminationismmust be considered the most successful solution tothe problem.

Mind in a Physical World

Mind in a Physical World PDF Author: Jaegwon Kim
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262611534
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
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.

A Powerful Particulars View of Causation

A Powerful Particulars View of Causation PDF Author: R.D. Ingthorsson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000361039
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
This book critically examines the recent discussions of powers and powers-based accounts of causation. The author then develops an original view of powers-based causation that aims to be compatible with the theories and findings of natural science. Recently, there has been a dramatic revival of realist approaches to properties and causation, which focus on the relevance of Aristotelian metaphysics and the notion of powers for a scientifically informed view of causation. In this book, R.D. Ingthorsson argues that one central feature of powers-based accounts of causation is arguably incompatible with what is today recognised as fact in the sciences, notably that all interactions are thoroughly reciprocal. Ingthorsson’s powerful particulars view of causation accommodates for the reciprocity of interactions. It also draws out the consequences of that view for issue of causal necessity and offers a way to understand the constitution and persistence of compound objects as causal phenomena. Furthermore, Ingthorsson argues that compound entities, so understood, are just as much processes as they are substances. A Powerful Particulars View of Causation will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and neo-Aristotelian philosophy, while also being accessible for a general audience. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003094241, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.