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Multiple-Realizability, Explanation and the Disjunctive Move

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Abstract

The multiple-realizability argument has been the mainstay ofanti-reductionist consensus in philosophy of mind for the past thirty years. Reductionist opposition to it has sometimes taken the form of the Disjunctive Move: If mental types are multiply-realizable, they are not coextensive with physical types; they might nevertheless be coextensive with disjunctionsof physical types, and those disjunctions could still underwrite psychophysical reduction. Among anti-reductionists, confidence is high that the Disjunctive Move fails; arguments to this effect, however, often leave something to be desired. I raise difficulties for one anti-reductionist response to the DisjunctiveMove, the Explanatory Response.

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Jaworski, W. Multiple-Realizability, Explanation and the Disjunctive Move. Philosophical Studies 108, 298–308 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015799029176

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