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Physical causal closure is a metaphysical theory about the nature of causation in the physical realm with significant ramifications in the study of metaphysics and the mind. In a strongly stated version, physical causal closure says that "all physical states have pure physical causes" — Jaegwon Kim , [ 1 ] or that "physical effects have only ...
Another theory is the identity theory, according to which mental events are (either type- or token-) identical to physical events. A more recent view, known as functionalism, claims that mental events are individuated (or constituted by) the causal role they play. As such, mental events would fit directly into the causal realm, as they are ...
The first principle, which most ontological physicalists would accept, is the causal closure of the physical domain, according to which, every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause. The second principle Kim notes is that of causal exclusion, which holds that no normal event can have more than one sufficient cause.
In the 20th century, its most significant defenders have been the noted philosopher of science Karl Popper and the neurophysiologist John Carew Eccles. [4] Popper, in fact, divided reality into three "worlds"—the physical, the mental, and objective knowledge (outside the mind)—all of which interact, [5] and Eccles adopted this same "trialist" form of interactionism. [6]
The Language of Thought, Harvard University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-674-51030-5. Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Harvard Press (UK) and MIT Press (US), 1979, ISBN 0-262-56027-5. The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology, MIT Press, 1983, ISBN 0-262-56025-9.
Causal decision theory of evaluating the expected utility of an action; Causal sets theory, an approach to quantum physics; Causal perturbation theory, a mathematically rigorous approach to renormalization theory; Causal theories, a phenomenon in social psychology whereby humans guess wrongly about the reasons for their actions (part of the ...
Jaegwon Kim has argued against non-reductive physicalism on the grounds that it violates the causal closure of the physical, which assumes that physics provides a full explanation of physical events. If mental properties are causally efficacious, they must either be identical to physical properties or there must be widespread overdetermination.
In philosophy of mind, the famous case of overdetermination is called mental-physical causal overdetermination. If we accept that a mental state (M) is realized by a physical state (P). And M can cause another mental state (M*) or another physical state (P*). Then, nomologically speaking, P can cause M* or P* too. In this way, M* or P* is both ...