Abstract
How can mental properties bring about physical effects, as they seem to do, given that the physical realizers of the mental goings-on are already sufficient to cause these effects? This question gives rise to the problem of mental causation (MC) and its associated threats of causal overdetermination, mental causal exclusion, and mental causal irrelevance. Some (e.g., Cynthia and Graham Macdonald, and Stephen Yablo) have suggested that understanding mental-physical realization in terms of the determinable/determinate relation (henceforth, ‘determination’) provides the key to solving the problem of MC: if mental properties are determinables of their physical realizers, then (since determinables and determinates are distinct, yet don’t causally compete) all three threats may be avoided. Not everyone agrees that determination can do this good work, however. Some (e.g., Douglas Ehring, Eric Funkhauser, and Sven Walter) object that mental-physical realization can’t be determination, since such realization lacks one or other characteristic feature of determination. I argue that on a proper understanding of the features of determination key to solving the problem of MC these arguments can be resisted.
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Notes
The problem and associated threats may be arrived at without assuming that the effect in question is physical. Such a presentation of the problem requires more setup, however, so for present purposes I focus on the problem as it more obviously attaches to physical effects purportedly caused by mental entities.
As implied, I understand causal relevance (a.k.a. causal autonomy) of a property vis-á-vis an effect in terms of the property’s being distinctively causal efficacious vis-á-vis that effect.
Or (as per Yablo) events, assuming that determination may hold between particulars as well as properties. Here I focus on properties in order to avoid complications with extending the determination relation to particulars, though I agree with Yablo that this can be done; see Wilson (in progress) for an extension to the case of tropes.
MacDonald and MacDonald (1986) more weakly maintain that the mental-physical relation is analogous to, though not the same as, the relation at issue in (paradigm cases of) determination. As we’ll see, this weaker suggestion is broadly compatible with the schematic understanding of determination at issue in this paper, which preserves the relevant respects of analogy.
Determination is also supposed to contrast with the genus/species relation, but the desired contrast may be subsumed under the conjunct/conjunction head, since the having of a given species property is standardly understood in conjunctive terms as involving the having of both a genus property and a differentia property. So, for toy example, to have the species property being human is to have both the genus property being animal and the differentia property being rational.
The notion of ‘whole distinctness’ as applied to properties is tricky, but for present purposes the following necessary condition will do: property P is wholly distinct from property Q only if neither P nor its instances are at all constituted by Q (or its instances).
As we’ll see in Sect. 2.1, there is a case to be made for a further constraint on Increased specificity; when both constraints are in place I am inclined to see Increased specificity as sufficient as well as necessary for determination (reflecting, as I’ll argue, that certain features traditionally associated with determination plausibly flow from Increased specificity).
See Wilson in progress for the sketch of a “logical parts”-based account of determination, applying certain insights of Paul’s (2002) account of realization.
As I understand powers here and elsewhere in this paper, these track the contributions a property makes to the production of effects of a certain type, when instanced in circumstances of a certain type. Philosophers disagree about the metaphysical status of powers (and properties). Here I am neutral on this status; insofar as all parties recognize the need to make sense of causal contributions (however understood) of broadly scientific properties (however understood), philosophers can translate into their preferred idiom.
It is not obvious that such multiplicity is necessary to determination; perhaps some determinables have only a single determinate (there is only one way for the determinable to be more specific). Hence in my view clause (ii) of Asymmetric dependence is best seen a typical correlate of, rather than a core thesis on a par with, Increased specificity.
Here we depart from the MacDonalds’ understanding, according to which determinable and determinate instances are token identical.
Was being scarlet also causally relevant to Sophie’s pecking? The above case for the causal relevance of being red to this effect appeals to difference-making; and if difference-making is crucial to establishing such relevance then it would seem that being scarlet isn’t so relevant (though this property would still be causally efficacious vis-á-vis the pecking, in virtue of having a power manifested on that occasion, compatible with the causal closure of the physical). My own view is that there are ways of establishing such relevance that make room for determinables and their determinates to each be distinctively efficacious vis-á-vis a single effect—e.g., in virtue of entering into different systems of laws, which systems may overlap in treating the effect in question. (Note that such relativity may be properly metaphysical, reflecting the existence of different, partly overlapping, causal joints in nature.) In any case, for present purposes it suffices to note that difference-making provides a way of establishing the distinctive causal efficacy of determinables, that ultimately adverts to their distinctive power profiles. Thanks to Jonas Christensen for discussion here.
Here I take The qua principle as primary, but nothing in what follows hangs on the precise direction of entailment between the qua and difference principles; they clearly go hand-in-hand.
As we’ll see (Sect. 4.1.1) there are other ways of filling in the locution.
See, e.g., Wandell (1993).
From a recent Wikipedia entry on color: “Colors that have the same visual appearance (= the same “tristimulus values”), but different spectral composition, are called metameric”; from a recent Wikipedia entry on metamerism: “In colorimetry, metamerism is the matching of apparent color of objects with different spectral power distributions. Colors that match this way are called metamers”.
See, e.g., Wyszecki and Styles (1982).
See, e.g., Judd and Wyszecki (1975).
If certain theses about perception are true—notably, direct realism—then there is moreover no barrier to taking colors to be partly constituted by broad as well as relatively ‘narrow’ physical features—say, by the surface reflectance properties of veridically perceived objects.
One may wonder (as did Eric Funkhouser and Jill North) whether this conclusion might be blocked by supposing that ‘color’ as used in metameric color science marks out a type bearing no specificity relation to that marked by ‘color’ as used in normal color science. While this strategy is in-principle available, it is (as yet) unmotivated; in particular, taking metamers to be specific kinds of colors provides a simpler and more unified account of the scientific practice and terminology than otherwise. Alternatively, one may wonder (as did Laurie Paul) whether, even granting that metamers are specific kinds of colors, this specificity might be understood in conjunctive terms (such that, e.g., the property of being a metamer might be a conjunctive property consisting in being a (non-metameric) color and being caused by a certain retinal SPD as conjuncts. Again, while this strategy is in-principle available, it is (as yet) unmotivated, insofar as there is no reason to think that being caused by a certain retinal SPD tracks a natural kind; hence any broadly scientific property. In any case, absent reason to think that we must understand metamers in conjunctive fashion, there is no barrier to taking metamers to be determinates of normal science colors; and this is enough to motivate the morals that I will now draw.
Thanks to Robert van Gulick for this case.
Indeed, a powers-based understanding of synchronic nothing over and above-ness unifies both reductive and non-reductive accounts, with the main difference being that the former accounts (e.g., type-identity accounts) maintain that the power profiles of higher-level properties are non-proper subsets of the power profiles of the relevant lower-level properties. It is worth noting that what is most crucial to establishing the physical acceptability of a higher-level property is that the powers of any one of its instances, on an occasion, be a subset of the powers of the physically acceptable property instance realizing it on that occasion. Similarly, it is the subset relation as holding between powers of instances that ultimately avoids problematic overdetermination and (when a proper subset is at issue) accommodates higher-level autonomy.
Consider the powers of P ∨ Q to produce effects when in circumstances C (restrict attention to these, for simplicity). Since there are two ways for P ∨ Q to be instanced, there will in general be two powers associated with C: (1) If in C ∧ P ∧ ¬ Q, then E 1; and (2) If in C ∧ Q ∧ ¬ P, then E 2. (There may be others, but that won’t matter for making the point.) What powers will P have, in C? It will have at least one of the powers of P ∨ Q, in C: 1. If in C ∧ P ∧ ¬ Q, then E 1. (Here the conjunct P is redundant, but no matter.) However, P will not have the following causal power of P ∨ Q, in C: 2. If in C ∧ Q ∧ ¬ P, then E 2. P would have such a power only if it could be both instanced and not instanced in C, which it can’t. So in this case (and more generally) P ∨ Q does not have a proper subset of the powers of P.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to members of the AHRC Bristol Workshop on Metaphysics, the Mellon Workshop on Mental Causation at Syracuse University, and the University of Toronto M&E Working Papers Group, and special thanks to Jonas Christensen, Benj Hellie, and Laurie Paul, for helpful feedback on previous versions.
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Wilson, J. Determination, realization and mental causation. Philos Stud 145, 149–169 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9384-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9384-8