The Problem of Causal Relata

Abstract

In the previous chapters I have argued that causation is a matter of counterfactual dependence among states of affairs (particulars’-havingproperties-at-times) as well as of physical connection in and among particulars (mostly objects). On that account, mental causation can be expected to be a matter of counterfactual dependence involving mental states as well as of physical connection involving a minded actor. But physical connections are indeed just that: physical. As far as causal connections are concerned, the only relevant properties will be physical-nomic, not mental ones. I came across this passage about Gödel, the mathematician:

(H)e remarked to his close friend, economist Oskar Morgenstern, that in the future it would be deemed a great oddity that 20th-century scientists had discovered the elementary physical particles but had failed even to consider the possibility of elementary psychic factors.’ (Dawson Jr., 1999, 68)