Mental Causation and the Paradoxes of Explanation

Author: Stueber, Karsten

Source: Philosophical Studies, Volume 122, Number 3, February 2005 , pp. 243-277(35)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

In this paper I will discuss Kim’s powerful explanatory exclusion argument against the causal efficacy of mental properties. Baker and Burge misconstrue Kim’s challenge if they understand it as being based on a purely metaphysical understanding of causation that has no grounding in an epistemological analysis of our successful scientific practices. As I will show, the emphasis on explanatory practices can only be effective in answering Kim if it is understood as being part of the dual-explanandum strategy. Furthermore, a fundamental problem of the contemporary debate about mental causation consists in the fact that all sides take very different examples to be paradigmatic for the relation between psychological and neurobiological explanations. Even if we should expect some alignment in the explanatory scope of neurobiology and psychology/folk-psychology, there is no reason to expect that all mental explanations are exempted by physical explanations, since they do not in general explain the same phenomena.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11098-005-9227-1

Affiliations: 1: Department of Philosophy, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, 01610-2395, USA,

Publication date: 2005-02-01