Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
Causal closure iterating that the physical and mental world cannot interact presents an obvious issue in regard to dualism. In the world of dualism, the mind and body are two entirely separate constituents which continuously interact with each other, in order for the human being to function as a whole.
Kim has raised an objection based on causal closure and overdetermination to non-reductive physicalism. [12] The non-reductive physicalist is committed to following three principles: the irreducibility of the mental to the physical, some version of mental-physical supervenience, and the causal efficaciousness of mental states. The problem ...
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 ...
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]
Causal reasoning is the process of identifying causality: the relationship between a cause and its effect.The study of causality extends from ancient philosophy to contemporary neuropsychology; assumptions about the nature of causality may be shown to be functions of a previous event preceding a later one.
Philosopher Brian Leftow has argued that the question cannot have a causal explanation (as any cause must itself have a cause) or a contingent explanation (as the factors giving the contingency must pre-exist), and that if there is an answer, it must be something that exists necessarily (i.e., something that just exists, rather than is caused ...
As a result of these arguments and others that build upon them, the dominant theory in philosophy of mind since the 1960s has been a version of non-reductive physicalism based on multiple realizability. [10] In 1988, Hilary Putnam used multiple realizability to argue against functionalism. Noting that functionalism is essentially a watered-down ...