On Horgan's Causal Compatibilism

Bregant, Janez (2003) On Horgan's Causal Compatibilism. In: UNSPECIFIED Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, pp. 55-57.

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Abstract

It is quite obvious why the antireductionist picture of mental
causation, which rests on supervenience, is such an
attractive theory. On one side it secures the mental a
preservation of its unique and different nature; on the other
side it tries to place the mental in our world in a way that is
compatible with the physicalistic view.
But Kim's argument from supervenience reminds us that
while trying to do so the antireductionists face the following
dilemma: if mental properties have causal powers we risk
a violation of the causal closure of the physics and
threaten our physicalistic position; if they do not have them
we adopt epiphenomenalism, which denies the mental
causal powers of any sort. So, either we violate the causal
closure of the physics or we adopt epiphenomenalism. We
can write it as an argument in the form of a constructive
dilemma and may call it the causal dilemma.

Item Type: Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords: Mental Causation; Epiphenomenalism; Causal Dilemma; Causal Compatibilism; Horgan, T.
Subjects: Philosophie > Philosophische Disziplinen > Epistemologie, Wissenschaftstheorie, Naturphilosophie
Philosophie > Philosophische Journale, Kongresse, Vereinigungen > Wittgenstein Symposium Kirchberg, Pre-Proceedings > Kirchberg 2003
Depositing User: Wolfgang Heuer
Date Deposited: 06 Dec 2020 14:35
Last Modified: 06 Dec 2020 14:35
URI: http://sammelpunkt.philo.at/id/eprint/2990

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