Abstract
Philosophers almost universally believe that concepts of supervenience fail to satisfy the standards for physicalism because they offer mere property correlations that are left unexplained. They are thus compatible with non-physicalist accounts of those relations. Moreover, many philosophers not only prefer some kind of functional-role theory as a physically acceptable account of mind-body and other inter-level relations, but they use it as a form of “superdupervenience” to explain supervenience in a physically acceptable way. But I reject a central part of this common narrative. I argue that functional-role theories fail by the same standards for physicalism because they merely state without explaining how a physical property plays or occupies a functional role. They are thus compatible with non-physicalist accounts of that role-occupying relation. I also argue that one cannot redeploy functional-role theory at a deeper level to explain role occupation, specifically by iterating the role-occupant scheme. Instead, one must use part-whole structural and mechanistic explanations that differ from functional-role theory in important ways. These explanations represent a form of “superduperfunctionalism” that stand to functional-role theory as concepts of superdupervenience stand to concepts of supervenience.
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Notes
Some philosophers also speak of “materialism” and “naturalism”. But I will speak uniformly of physicalism. One may also understand physical priority in terms of current or future physics, although there are problems with either option. For some recent discussion, see Melnyk (1997) and Wilson (2006).
Let me add three smaller points. One, this is “literal” role occupation, as Gillett (2002) describes it, as opposed to the way specific part properties might account for F by standing in their own causal relations. Two, I will frequently speak of property G standing in the causal relations, although others may prefer the expanded “G enables its instances to stand in causal relations”. Three, in light of Shoemaker’s (1982) distinction between a “core” realization denoted by “G” versus a “total” realization denoted by the entire open predicate “x has G and (\(C_{1}\ldots C_{n}\) causes G causes \(E_{1}\ldots E_{n}\))”, I prefer to say that the core occupies the role insofar as the occupier is caused by \(C_{1}\), and causes \(E_{1}\), and so on (the total realization is not caused by \(C_{1}\), it is the instantiation of the entire set of causal relations that includes \(C_{1}\) causing G). Still, when one explains how the core occupier G is able to stand in the pertinent set of causal relations, one thereby explains the total realization that consists of G standing in those causal relations. So no harm will result if I speak of the core as the occupier property.
For a way to develop the notion of a structural property, see Pagés (2002); cf. the notion of a micro-based property in Kim (1998, p. 84). Also, whereas it is generally true that a structural property is not a fundamental physical property, there are exceptions. E.g., quantum entanglement seems to be a fundamental physical state type that is both complex but not determined by the properties of the parts (see Maudlin 1998).
Neher and Sakmann (1976) made the discoveries in question, which earned them a Nobel Prize in 1991. Also, one might locate the emergentist threat in different lower-level places. E.g., McLaughlin (1992) argues that British emergentism was not rebutted until the advent of quantum chemistry, which means that one must block the threat from emergentism at the place where quantum mechanics interacts with chemical phenomena.
The preceding two paragraphs were meant to allay the worries of an anonymous reviewer that my argument might depend upon a fairly weak account of causation, such as correlations that would remain intact under various non-physical possibilities. The reviewer also added that, if the fact that G plays causal role R is accounted for in an emergentist way, then a functionalist might say it is not G that plays role R but rather G in combination with whatever emergent feature of reality linked G to R. But saying that an “emergent feature links G to R” is ambiguous in much the way I indicated in the text. It might mean that some emergent property X links G to R by standing in the intra-level relation between G and R (C brings about X which brings about G). Or it might mean that some lower-level feature of the parts accounts for why G stands in R by some inter-level emergent relation. Once again, whereas the first conflicts with the causal relations posited by functional-role theory, the second claim about constitutive relations does not. Let me also add that, on a standard causal theory of properties, G is to be individuated by its intra-level causes and effects—forward and backward looking powers (Shoemaker 1998, 2007)—not upward and downward constitutive relations, meaning in the present case, not by its inter-level constitutive relations to the parts of the instances of G.
Jessica Wilson (1999, p. 40) was the first to argue in this way. Specifically, she argued that Horgan’s kind of superdupervenience, where there is an explanation for a macro-feature like liquidity in terms of micro-properties via a functional definition, is not sufficient for physicalism because it is consistent with liquidity being supercaused by the micro-properties in an unexplained way (citing Stephen Yablo’s 1992, pp. 256–257, emergentist interpretation of supervenience). But whereas Wilson was focused on the supervenience relation, I focus on the fact of role occupation. I also think this creates a dialectical advantage. For it is not clear how the supervenience law \(G=>F\) remains emergent if it is subject to a functional-role explanation. By challenging instead the physical acceptability of the fact of role occupation \(C_{i}\ldots C_{n}\) causes G causes \(E_{i}\ldots E_{n}\), I thereby challenge a premise in the functional-role explanation for the supervenience law \(G=>F\). Moreover, I go well beyond Wilson’s case by considering a number of objections (Sect. 4), doing exhaustive search through the resources of functional-role theory (Sect. 5), and criticizing iterations of the role-occupant scheme as a strategy for explaining role occupation (Sect. 6).
I thank an anonymous referee for raising this issue.
Thus there are familiar reasons why no one offers, say, quantum conditions for statements of role occupation regarding higher-level theories. They are practically impossible to formulate, given the sheer number and complexity of fundamental entities involved. As well, their description would lose any serious explanatory connection with the higher-level phenomena targeted for explanation. Even Hameroff and Penrose’s (1996) controversial quantum theory of consciousness does not appeal directly to basic physics, maintaining instead that quantum events effect the microtubules in a neuron, which in turn effect neurotransmission in a way that is relevant to alleged non-computable aspects of consciousness.
I thank an anonymous referee for this very perceptive observation, as well as the next objection I discuss.
If someone objects to my general way of expressing the physical explanation condition, urging a more specific condition that requires only that the \(G=>F\) connection must be explained in a physically acceptable way, that would be special pleading in the extreme. Granted, discussions in the literature were often framed in terms of supervenience laws. E.g., Wilson puts Horgan’s complaint in terms of supervenience: “Any genuinely physicalist metaphysics should countenance ontological inter-level supervenience relations only if they are robustly explainable in a physicalistically acceptable way” (2002, p. 55). See also Kim (2002, pp. 36–37). This is understandable, since the subject was supervenience and physicalism. But, again, there is no good reason to exclude the facts of role occupation from worries over physical acceptability, if in fact one is concerned about the physical acceptability of the theory used in an explanation.
Of course the appeal to structural properties and a causal theory of properties is not the prerogative of functional-role theory alone. One may also supplement supervenience with the same general metaphysical ideas. E.g., regarding Kim’s definition of strong supervenience, let the supervenience base B contain structural properties that imply parts for their instances, and let the physical properties in B be individuated by a causal theory of properties. One might then argue, in a similar vein, that these additional resources supply an explanation why a subvenient G correlates with a supervenient F. But, in point of fact, I do not believe that the additional facts explain either supervenience or role occupation.
Put in a different way, on a standard causal theory of properties, one individuates G by its intra-level causal relations, not its inter-level realization relations that connect G to still lower-level properties. I developed an alternative theory that individuates properties by their total nomic relations, including inter-level realization relations (see Endicott 2007).
Haugeland (1978, p. 216) called them “morphological” and “systematic” explanations. I add two points. One, the division is a popular one of convenience, for I think it is more accurate to view the relevant explanations along a continuum, where those that target relatively static structures are located at one end (the lattice structure of carbon atoms in a diamond), those that target more fluid structures are located in the middle (\(\hbox {H}_{2}\hbox {O}\) in its different forms), and those that target mechanistic processes are located at the opposite end (the human brain with its systematic processes for cognition). Two, one might wonder how facts about particulars—the parts and wholes—could explain facts about properties and hence the targeted facts about occupier properties. But one can understand how a property occupies role by understanding how instances of that property stand in the relations constitutive of the pertinent role, and one can understand how instances of the property stand in relations constitutive of that role by means of the proffered part-whole explanations.
This common notion of a part differs from technical and philosophical notions that allow a part to occupy the same spatio-temporal region as its whole, e.g., the notion of an improper part that allows for identity, or the reflexive notion of a part whereby everything is as a part of itself, or the notion that a non-identical but coincident object is a part of the whole.
E.g., Carl Craver (2007, p. 160) maintains that the explanatorily relevant parts and properties cited in a mechanistic explanation do not necessarily enable one to derive the phenomenon targeted for explanation.
I mean “information” in a descriptive sense, since one does not possess the pertinent information merely by credit of the concept of \(\hbox {H}_{2}\hbox {O}\) on a purely causal or reliabilist or otherwise externalist theory of meaning. One possesses the scientific information by means of encoded theories about \(\hbox {H}_{2}\hbox {O}\) that were articulated by experts and transmitted via descriptions, charts, graphs, and other representational items. Also, one could in priniciple laboriously pack all the needed information into an incredibly lengthy structural predicate that applies to the same x. Indeed, one could in principle pack all the information about the entire universe into an incredibly lengthy relational predicate, pace Leibniz, that expresses the “complete concept” of an individual x. But, again, a (PW) explanation enters to break down the property picked out by that predicate, thus constituting an acceptable explanation.
One might reject the flat claim for the wrong reasons. E.g., given a nonreductive interpretation of (F1), one might fail to see the difference between the two property “orders” of F and G versus the present issue about mereological “levels” for the particulars that instantiate F and G (see Kim 1998, pp. 80–83). Or one might confuse the fact that causal-role functionalism is “inter-theoretic” in nature by having a functional theory specify “F” and a realization theory specify “G” with the different issue of being “inter-level” in nature by a mereological criterion.
Functional-role theory is often supplemented with a subset view of realization (see Shoemaker 2007; Wilson 1999). So the point can be put alternatively by saying that an occupier G is larger than or equal to the functional property F because the causal powers of F are a subset of the causal powers of G (a proper subset for the nonreductive view). This, again, is not true for the part properties \(P_{i}\ldots P_{n}\) vis–à–vis the function F / G of the whole they serve to explain.
I make a parallel point with respect to a synthesis of flat functional-role theories of realization with part-whole dimensioned theories of realization (Endicott 2011), though my discussion does not concern supervenience or the standards for physicalism.
Someone might worry that the causal dispositions to which Cummins refers are not captured by the laws of causal-role functionalism, at least on a nomic regularity interpretation of those laws (see Martin 1994). I think these worries can be allayed (e.g., see Choi 2006, 2008). Or one might reinterpret causal-role functionalism in terms of dispositions by mapping the inputs, internal states, and outputs onto the triggering conditions, dispositions, and their manifestations. However that may be, Cummins maintains that psychological laws are often the data to be explained (2000), which is perfectly consistent with using his functional analysis as a (PW) explanation in the way suggested here.
A (PW) explanation is not turtles upon turtles, but turtles composed of organs, composed of cells, composed of molecules, composed of atoms, until the fundamental level of physics is reached. One is silly. The other is science.
To use a well-known example from Scriven (1962), in most everyday contexts it might be perfectly acceptable to explain why there is a ink spot on the carpet by saying merely that the ink well was spilled. But in contexts where one has raised the issue of physicalism, Scriven’s answer will not suffice since it does not indicate that the ink well was spilled in a physically acceptable way rather than by telekinesis or some divine intervention or as some inexplicable emergent fact.
An anonymous referee worried that my conditions might be too weak, since one should want some guarantee that a given claim of realization or functional role satisfaction is physically acceptable, not merely the weaker claim, that if one is lucky and certain contingent possibilities turn out to be actual, a realized or functionally characterized property will be physically acceptable. But, in response, I assume that the pertinent theories which supply explanations for role occupation, from psychology down to quantum mechanics, are good scientific probabilities and not just contingent possibilities. Consequently, if one is a scientific functionalist, and if all but the fundamental level is thereby explained, that should be sufficient for physically acceptability.
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Acknowledgments
I thank two anonymous referees for some insightful comments. I also thank Terry Horgan for discussing an earlier draft of this paper, and Tom Polger for discussing the topic of role-occupant iterations covered in Sect. 6.
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Endicott, R. Functionalism, superduperfunctionalism, and physicalism: lessons from supervenience. Synthese 193, 2205–2235 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0839-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0839-5