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Part-whole physicalism and mental causation

Douglas Ehring

pp. 359-388

Abstract

A well-known ``overdetermination''argument aims to show that the possibility of mental causes of physical events in a causally closed physical world and the possibility of causally relevant mental properties are both problematic. In the first part of this paper, I extend an identity reply that has been given to the first problem to a property-instance account of causal relata. In the second, I argue that mental types are composed of physical types and, as a consequence, both mental and physical types may be causally relevant with respect to the same physical effect, contrary to the overdetermination argument. In further sections, I argue that mental types have causal powers, consider some objections and reject an alternative version of part-whole physicalism. Throughout I assume that causal relata are tropes and property types are classes of tropes.

Publication details

Published in:

(2003) Synthese 136 (3).

Pages: 359-388

DOI: 10.1023/A:1025143104108

Full citation:

Ehring Douglas (2003) „Part-whole physicalism and mental causation“. Synthese 136 (3), 359–388.