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Conspectus of Jaegwon Kim S Paper Mental
Conspectus of Jaegwon Kim S Paper Mental
– Peter Sjöstedt-H –
MMXVIII
Introduction
– For the ‘contemporary physicalist’, there are two main mind-body problems:
1. The problem of mental causation (MC): ‘How can the mind exert its causal powers
in a world that is fundamentally physical?’ [p. 7]
1. For the possibility of human agency and therefore ‘moral practice’ [p. 9] – i.e.
moral responsibility. [But see Schopenhauer against Kant on this issue].
1b. Beliefs, desires, intentions, decisions must help us navigate the world and build
‘bridges and cities’ etc. [But is this not begging the question?]
o Oddly conss was ‘virtually banished from the philosophical and scientific
scene for much of the last century’ [p. 10].
o Still today (2005) much of ‘cognitive science seems still in the grip of what
may be called methodological epiphenomenalism.’ [p. 11]
§ This is in contradistinction to conss’ establishment in value theory and
moral philosophy.
§ Kim quotes Ivan Pavlov on the importance of conss per se: ‘“only one
thing in life is of actual interest for us—our psychical experience.”’
(1904) [p. 12]
– ‘Supervenience’ is broadly defined as ‘the claim that what happens in our mental life
is wholly dependent on, and determined by, what happens with our bodily processes.’
o This is then defined as a physicalism, compatible with certain mind-brain
identity theories, functionalism, and emergentism (as ‘explicitly noted’ [p. 14]
by British emergentist C. D. Broad [1925, p. 64]).
o Mind-body supervenience though attractive to physicalists as a means to avoid
dualism, comes with its own heavy burden: MC. This predicament is now
detailed using a few principles:
– If mental event M causes mental event M* (as is compatible with the the causal
exclusion principle), but if M* must be instantiated by physical event P* (e.g. a neural
event), this transgresses the exclusion principles (2 and 3): Is M* only caused by M or
by P?
o ‘In what sense, then, can the M-instance be said to be a “cause,” or a
generative source, of the M*-instance?’ [p. 19]
§ M " M*
§ 5
§ P*
§ M M*
§ $ 5
§ 9 P*
§ [= Model M-P*]
– The problem with this proposed solution, for a physicalist, is that it still posits
[anomalous] mental-to-physical causation (rather than mental-to-mental causation as
in the previous model).
– Another option is to say that M’s determiner, P, is that alone which causes P*
(thereby proposing pure physical-to-physical causation).
§ M M*
§ X X
§ P " P*
§ [= Model P-P*]
– Thus we consider two models (M-P* and P-P*). For a non-reductive physicalist (i.e.
non-eliminativist), both P and M types are distinct properties.
– ‘At this point the causal exclusion principle applies: either M or P must be
disqualified as P*’s cause.’ [p. 21]
o If P is disqualified as P*’s cause, then this breaks the causal closure principle
(a physical event must have a sufficient physical cause [if it has a cause at
all]).
– So in order to harmonize the exclusion principle (2 and 3) with the causal closure
principle (1), it seems as if we must accept Model P-P*.
o In this case, M and M* would be like ‘two successive shadows cast by a
moving car’ [p. 21]: i.e. they are both epiphenomena of the car, and the first
shadow per se does not cause the second.
– But if mental events are not at all causally efficacious, we then come across another
problem:
o ‘The problem of mental causation. Causal efficacy of mental properties is
inconsistent with the joint acceptance of the following four claims: (i) physical
causal closure, (ii) causal exclusion, (iii) mind-body supervenience, and (iv)
mental/physical property dualism—the view that mental properties are
irreducible to physical properties.’ [pp. 21-22]
§ Essentially, the acceptance of mental causation (which Kim has argued
is needful) is inconsistent with those four principles which must be
accepted by non-reductive physicalists.
§ So Kim then considers whether we can solve this inconsistency by
dropping non-reductivism (i.e. by reducing the mental to the physical).
– Kim begins by claiming that the philosophical debate of the past few decades
concerning mind-to-matter reduction has been futile because it has adopted the wrong
view of reduction: namely that of Ernest Nagel (of the 1950s).
o This was reduction as the requirement of providing bridge laws between the
reducing and reduced theories [e.g. psychology and neurology].
o One problem with this is that the theoretical existence of such bridge laws
would be compatible with many dualism such as double-aspect theory, pre-
established harmony, epiphenomenalism and emergentism. Therefore such
bridge laws (aka. transordinal nomology] would not themselves deliver any
particular explanation of the mind-matter relation. I.e. the venture to find those
laws is a philosophical dead end.
o One might want to ‘strengthen the bridge laws into identities’ [p. 23] (e.g.
“pain = C-fiber activation”), but there are many known serious flaws with
such reduction to identity.
– Kim then states that that which might be required to reduce a mental property is the
functionalizing of the mental property. He thus calls this functional reduction.
o E.g. being in pain could be defined by being in a state that is caused by certain
inputs (e.g. tissue damage, trauma) that in turn cause certain outputs (e.g.
screaming, weeping).
o Next, once a mental property has been functionalized, ‘we can look for its
“realizers”—that is states or properties that specify the causal specification
defining that mental property.’ [p. 24]
o Because of the possibility of multiple realization [Fordor, Putnam, et al.],
establishing such realizers will be an ongoing affair ‘with no clear end’.
§ [I.e. there may be little or no similarity between the pain realizers of
humans, octopuses, aliens, etc., in which case no generalization (i.e.
into a law) may be possible. – no ‘global reduction’, as the Nagelian
transordinal nomology would have it].
• ‘the multiple realizability of pain is no barrier to local reduction
by functionalization’ [p. 25] – i.e. we can at least focus on the
realizers of a specific [‘local’] species, or individual.
• Kim puts forward the claim that a mental event is its functional
realizer (e.g. ‘to be in pain is to instantiate one of its realizers’
[p. 26]).
• If this functional realization were the case, then the Ms and Ps
in the models above would not represent two causal sources but
one and the same, thereby seemingly resolving the problem of
causal exclusion and causal closure. But:
– ‘The key question then is this: Is pain functionally reducible? Are mental properties in
general functionalizable and hence functionally reducible? Or are they “emergent”
and irreducible?’ [pp. 26/27]
o Qualia are not functionally reducible, Kim says, because of ‘the metaphysical
possibility of qualia inversion’ [p. 27].
§ [This is the possibility that the qualitatively identical, say, neural
activity that realizes the colour quale auburn in one person will realize
the colour quale azure in another person, even were the two persons to
use the same name for the distinct qualia (an argument John Locke
made).]
§ Kim states that this view is standard amongst ‘philosophers who work
in this area’ [p. 27] such as Block, Hill, Jackson, Levine, McGinn,
McLaughlin.
o Kim also states that ‘mind-brain identity reduction is [also] not an option for
us’ [p. 29] (for reasons Kim provides elsewhere).
o [I note that Kim does not in this essay really give any reason as to why
‘intentional/cognitive properties’ are functionalizable.]
– Kim takes stock: MC is solvable iff mental events are functionally reducible, but
qualia are not thus reducible, hence ‘the problem of mental causation is not solvable
for phenomenal mental properties.’ [p. 29]
o ‘So the functional irreducibility of consciousness entails the unsolvability of
both the problem of consciousness and the problem of mental causation’ [p.
29].
§ [I.e. the functional irreducibility of qualia halts the resolution of
matter-mind upward causation and mind-matter downward causation
(and mind-mind lateral causation – mental causation is really of two
main types).]
– Kim concludes by the assertion that these two knotty problems ‘represent the most
profound challenge to physicalism. … [P]hysicalism will not be able to survive intact
and in its entirety … [but] what does survive is good enough for us.’ [p. 31]
o [The rest of the book – Physicalism, or Something Near Enough – continues to
explore this emasculation of physicalism.]
———
1
This is the first chapter from Jaegwon Kim’s book Physicalism, or Something Near Enough
(2005, Princeton University Press, pp. 1–31). An early version of this chapter appeared as
‘Mental Causation and Consciousness: the Two Mind-Body Problems for the Physicalist’ in:
Physicalism and Its Discontents, C. Gillett and B. Loewer, eds. (2001, Cambridge University
Press).