Abstract
Although physicalism is a dominant position in contemporary philosophy of mind and metaphysics, there are surprisingly very few serious arguments for physicalism, which may contribute to the revival of anti-physicalism in recent decades. In this article, I develop a causal argument for physicalism in general, inspired by the causal argument for reductive physicalism. By comparing each pair of premises, I argue that, while the causal argument for reductive physicalism is controversial, the causal argument for physicalism simpliciter is promising.
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Notes
Very unlikely a single elementary particle posited by ideal physics is able to instantiate mental phenomena; only the aggregations and configurations of elementary particles can do so. Hence, the grounding bases of mental properties (and other higher-level properties) should be the aggregations and configurations of elementary physical properties—or in Jaegwon Kim’s words, “micro-based properties” (Kim, 1998: 84). Although configurations of elementary physical properties are macroscopic, they are still physical properties in the narrow sense, conceptually distinct from those properties studied by special sciences (e.g., biological, neurological, and physiological properties).
When an event c that instantiates a property F causes an effect e in virtue of having F, I will say that F is causally relevant to e. Here, I assume that properties play a significant role in causation—to assume so is not to deny the causal efficacy of other categories (events, objects, tropes). I myself accept an ecumenist view of causation, according to which causation involves the cooperation of tokens and types.
I use the term “causal overdetermination” in a broad way: A and B causally overdetermine the effect E if and only if A and B are, or figure in, two distinct and sufficient causes of E.
An earlier version of this argument is briefly mentioned in my (2020b).
In this article, I leave it open whether all kinds of mental properties (sensations, perceptions, beliefs, desires) are causally efficacious. The soundness of the two causal arguments requires only that at least some mental properties are causally relevant to the effects.
Physical processes are not necessary for causation, either. Consider some examples of negative causation: a person’s suffering heart damage causes her to die; and kicking over a chair causes a bottle on the chair to fall. Those examples are robust cases of causation. But in such cases, the causal processes ineliminably involve negative states of affairs (the lack of oxygen and the absence of support, respectively), which cannot transfer physical quantities such as energy and momentum (see Schaffer, 2000).
It is interesting to note that although Closure* is more plausible than Closure, the former is not logically weaker than the latter.
I want to note in passing a third causal argument, which aims to establish Identity* by appeal to the premises of Closure, Interaction, and Exclusion* (for a similar suggestion, see Stoljar, 2022). But as I have argued, Closure* and Interaction* are more plausible than Closure and Interaction. Hence, the causal argument A2 is preferable.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors of Asian Journal of Philosophy for the invitation to contribute a lead paper for article symposium. I am also grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal and the audience of my talk at Beijing Normal University for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
Funding
This work was supported by the RGC Research Fellow Scheme (No.: RFS2122-4H03) and the General Research Fund (No.: 14602321) of Hong Kong Research Grants Council.
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Zhong, L. A causal argument for physicalism. AJPH 2, 71 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44204-023-00110-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44204-023-00110-1