Abstract
The causal argument for physicalism about the mind has received a lot of attention. In particular, the literature has focused on the main premise of the argument, namely the causal closure principle (CC). In this article, I present and discuss the so-called argument from physiology, that is widely regarded as the most convincing line of reasoning in favour of CC. When it comes to providing empirical grounds for the argument from physiology, the most promising move the physicalist can opt for is to focus on the mechanisms of synaptic transmission. Here, I argue that the argument from physiology can provide support for CC only if evidence concerning synaptic transmission is combined with a non-innocent assumption about the internal causal organisation of the nervous system. I contend that this assumption should be vindicated. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be possible at the moment.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Wilson (2015, 2021) calls into question this way of conceiving strong emergence, arguing that there could be cases in which properties that we would tend to regard as strongly emergent are metaphysically necessitated by physical properties – e.g. a Malebranchean scenario in which God always causes the instantiation of fundamental mental properties upon the occasion of physical properties. However, for our purpose, a modality-based definition of strong emergence will do the work (among others, see Chalmers 2006; Noordhof 2010).
- 3.
To be clear, these are not the only possible solutions to the mind-body problem. In particular, panpsychism has been receiving a lot of attention in the recent literature (see Bruntrup and Jaskolla 2016; Goff 2017). However, the debate seems to be still largely driven by the dichotomy between physicalism and dualism. This is also the picture emerging from the latest PhilPapers survey (https://survey2020.philpeople.org), in which 51.9% of the participants leaned towards physicalism, 32.1% towards anti-physicalism, and 15.9% opted for ‘other’. A more specific question on consciousness in the survey reveals that 22% of the participants leaned towards dualism, while only 7% were sympathetic to panpsychism.
- 4.
I focus on the line of reasoning that is discussed in the contemporary debate (see Papineau 2001, 2002). However, it is worth highlighting that the causal argument has some antecedents in the history of Western philosophy. It is sufficient to think about Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia writing to Descartes that it would be easier ‘to concede matter and extension to the soul than to concede the capacity to move a body and to be moved by it to an immaterial thing’ (III 685 AT, in Shapiro 2007, p. 68). Interestingly, the same line of reasoning can be found in Lucretius’ De rerum natura, III 162–168.
- 5.
This version of the principle is employed in Papineau (2002). I take a closer look at the possible formulations of the principle in the next section.
- 6.
According to the standard definition of overdetermination, A and B overdetermine an event e iff:
-
(i)
A and B are distinct events;
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(ii)
A is sufficient for causing e;
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(iii)
B is sufficient for causing e;
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(iv)
If A did not occur, e would still occur;
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(v)
If B did not occur, e would still occur.
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(i)
- 7.
In the debate on causal closure, the standard notion of event is Kim’s (1976) one, according to which events are ‘property exemplifications’ that can be represented as ordered triples <x, P, t>. Focusing on monadic events, an event consists of an object x instantiating a property P at a moment t.
- 8.
By ineliminable, I mean that if M failed to be instantiated, then e would not occur. No other property would be instantiated in place of M, making up for the absence of M’s causal powers.
- 9.
See Sider (2003); a different view is defended in Bernstein (2016). The literature on overdetermination is vast and complex. In addition, what is usually at stake in the debate is the possibility of non-reductive, physicalist models of overdetermining mental causation. As far as I can see, arguing for systematic overdetermination within a dualist framework is way more difficult.
- 10.
Note that this is not the only argument we have available. In particular, the argument ‘from fundamental forces’ (Papineau 2001) is frequently discussed in the literature. However, the argument from physiology is ‘broadly considered much more convincing’ (Dimitrijević 2020), and it seems to be the one even Papineau insists upon in his latest contributions (see Papineau 2020).
- 11.
See also Baysan (2020).
- 12.
See also James (1879) on the evolutionary utility of pleasure and pain.
- 13.
Whether non-reductive versions of physicalism are ruled out by the causal argument is a controversial issue that has been extensively debated. In particular, Kim’s (1998, 2005) exclusion argument against non-reductive physicalism is worth mentioning. I will not go into the details of Kim’s line of reasoning, for which a number of non-reductive solutions have been suggested (among others, see Bennett 2003). In what follows, I will concede that the physicalist can reject dualism on the grounds of the causal argument without being committed to a strong identity thesis between mental and physical properties.
- 14.
For an overview of the provided formulations, see Gibb (2015).
- 15.
Specifying t is needed to rule out the possibility that a physical event e occurring at t2 has a purely mental cause M at t1 that is in its turn the effect of a physical cause P at t. If the causal closure principle simply stated that ‘all physical effects have sufficient physical causes’ (as in Papineau 1998), e could have a purely mental cause at t1 and still respect the principle. Since causation is (usually regarded as) a transitive relation, the fact that P causes M at t would be enough for granting that e has a sufficient physical cause in the scenario just described.
- 16.
In the sense of not fundamentally mental. Most notably, this view has been defended by Montero and Papineau (2005).
- 17.
Note that this does not make mediated causation per se problematic. Given a physical event e1 and its alleged physical effect e2, CC is perfectly compatible with the possibility of an intermediate physical event e* that is caused by e1 and causes e2. What CC rules out is the possibility of non-physical causal intermediacy.
- 18.
See also Garcia (2014) on ontologically proximal and distal causes.
- 19.
The argument from fundamental forces should not be confused with the one suggested by Dennett (1991), according to which the exercise of special mental forces would violate the principle of conservation of energy. Despite its initial appeal, this line of reasoning seems to be irremediably flawed; see Papineau (2002), Gibb (2010), Tomasetta (2015).
- 20.
Montero argues that ‘while we certainly do not have a complete nonmental account of what we take to be mental causes, we have a good start’ (2003, p. 185).
- 21.
This is ultimately the reason why Montero (2003) is skeptical about the argument from physiology.
- 22.
Robb (2018) has argued against the invisibility claim. He contends that there is, at least in principle, a way to empirically determine whether strongly emergent mental properties have a causal role – more on this in Sect. 5. However, even if Robb is right, mental causation à la Lowe is nonetheless almost invisible. This is enough for undermining the first component of the argument from physiology.
- 23.
An anonymous reviewer cast doubts on this point by providing a counterexample: the absence of evidence that there was a tornado an hour ago is good evidence that there was no tornado, even if one cannot exclude the possibility that there was actually a tornado but the damages were immediately and silently repaired. As far as I can see, there is a crucial difference between this scenario and the case of invisible mental causation. We know that tornados can leave evidence in the actual world – and they usually do, which explains why we regard the described scenario as an unlikely one. Provided that we could be wrong, the fact that we have repeatedly observed such evidence allows us to legitimately infer that there was no tornado an hour ago. On the contrary, we do not know whether invisible mental causation takes place in the actual world. This makes the inference from the absence of evidence to the evidence of absence much riskier.
- 24.
See also Zargar et al. (2020).
- 25.
Admittedly, MCC is the methodological version of SCC, that is not the principle I am considering. To be consistent, I should take MCC to be the precept that when accounting for the production of behaviour, the explanans cannot include causes other than immediately sufficient physical ones. As far as I can see, the simplification does not affect in any significant way the considerations made here.
- 26.
- 27.
I am grateful to David Papineau for pointing out this to me.
- 28.
On this point, see Yates (2009).
- 29.
I borrow this formulation from Robb (2018). Note that Robb is not committed to the principle.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to David Papineau, Alfredo Tomasetta and Michele Di Francesco for the numerous discussions on the causal argument. They have also provided me with extremely helpful comments and feedback on various drafts of this work. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the tenth edition of the Research Workshop on Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Science (PBCS X). I would like to thank the audience for their questions and suggestions. Finally, I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for providing extensive and helpful comments.
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Zanotti, G. (2023). Causal Closure, Synaptic Transmission and Emergent Mental Properties. In: Viejo, J.M., Sanjuán, M. (eds) Life and Mind. Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30304-3_4
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