PHIL 5973: Seminar: Metaphysics
Topic: Mental Causation
University of Arkansas, Fall 2003
Professor: Eric Funkhouser
Office location: Old Main 314
Office hours: MW 11:30-12:30, F 12:30-1:30, and by appointment
Office phone number: (479) 575-7441
Email: efunkho@uark.edu
Class meeting time: T, 3:30-5:50
Classroom: Old Main 329
Class website: http://comp.uark.edu/~efunkho/seminar.html
All class handouts, and some additional links (hopefully), will be put on this page.
Texts:
Required:
1. Dennett, Daniel, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987).
[Hereafter, IS]
2. Dretske, Fred, Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes (Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 1988).
[Hereafter, EB]
3. Heil, John and Alfred Mele, eds., Mental Causation (New York, NY: Oxford University
Press, 1995).
[Hereafter, MC]
Other books of interest:
Davidson, Donald, Essays on Actions and Events (New York, NY: Oxford University Press,
1980).
Kim, Jaegwon, Supervenience and Mind (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
I have ordered the required texts, and they should be available at the University bookstore.
If you wish to purchase the other books of interest, you will have to order them yourself.
There will be readings from these other books, but they will be photocopied and available in
a folder in the Philosophy Library/Conference Room (Old Main 315).
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Course Description:
This seminar is concerned with the contemporary, primarily metaphysical, problem of
mental causation. Predecessors to the current problem can be found amongst the reactions
to Descartes’ substance dualism by his contemporaries. In order for the mental substance to
be causally relevant in the physical world, it seems that there would need to be gaps in the
causal chain of the physical world. Otherwise, there would be no work for the mental
substance to perform (it would all be performed by the physical mechanism). But, is it likely
that there are such gaps? Further, assuming that there are such gaps, how do non-spatial
mental substances causally interact with essentially spatial, physical mechanisms?
Contemporary philosophy of mind avoids the problems raised by this second question by
jettisoning Descartes’ substance dualism. But most contemporary philosophers of mind
couple their substance monism with a property, or theoretic, pluralism. Ours is a completely
physical world, but it contains properties, mental properties in particular, that cannot be
reduced to the properties of basic science (i.e., physics). Alternatively, there are true and
informative descriptions of the world that cannot be captured in the vocabulary of basic
science. In this course we will consider the problem of mental causation as it arises for this
coupling of substance monism with property, or theoretic, pluralism. We will call this
combination of views non-reductive physicalism.
The first worry raised against Descartes was whether there are any gaps in the physical chain
of causation that the mental substance could “plug.” A similar worry arises for nonreductive physicalism. In order for mental causation to occur, it seems that mental
properties must sometimes be causally relevant. But this seems to require that not
everything is causally explained by the physical properties. Again, we are looking for a gap in
the physical chain of causation, but now we are looking for the gap at the level of properties
rather than substances. The problem for non-reductive physicalism, as for Descartes’
dualism, is that there doesn’t seem to be such a gap. Every effect in the physical world
seems to be sufficiently accounted for by the previous physical properties. This raises a
dilemma: either mental properties are causal overdeterminers (which seems highly unlikely
and/or uneconomical) or they are epiphenomenal (which seems unacceptable).
Most of the course will concern itself with addressing this type of challenge to non-reductive
physicalism. But, towards the end of the course, we will also address worries about how the
content of intentional states can be causally efficacious.
Course Requirements and Grading
Regular attendance and participation in weekly class meetings is expected, and will be a
factor in your course grade. You will also be responsible for:
*4 short (3-5 pages each) “reaction papers” concerning weekly readings
*1 in-class presentation covering an assigned reading
*A major, final paper (approximately 15 pages)
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Schedule of Readings and Topics (Note: This might be changed slightly.)
Set-Up
Week 1.
T Aug. 26
Reading: None
Topic: Introduction; Causation
Week 2.
T Sept. 2
Reading: Dennett (pp. 1-81, IS)
Topic: The Intentional Stance
Week 3.
T Sept. 9
Reading: Dennett (pp. 83-116 & pp. 237-286, IS)
Topic: Intentionality and Rationality
The Exclusion Argument: The Dilemma of Epiphenomenalism or
Overdetermination
Week 4.
T Sept. 16
Reading: Donald Davidson (“Mental Events” and “Psychology as
Philosophy”) and Jaegwon Kim (pp. 189-210, MC)
Topic: Anomalous Monism and Non-reductionism
Week 5.
T Sept. 23
Reading: Davidson, Kim, McLaughlin, and Sosa (pp. 3-50, MC)
Topic: Epiphenomenalism
Week 6.
T Sept. 30
Reading: Kim (“Mechanism, Purpose, and Explanatory Exclusion”) and Van
Gulick (pp. 233-256, MC)
Topic: The Exclusion Argument
Week 7.
T Oct. 7
Reading: Baker (pp. 75-95, MC), Dennett (excerpt from Darwin’s Dangerous
Idea), and Fodor (“Special Sciences: Still Autonomous After All These
Years”)
Topic: Anti-Metaphysical Reactions
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Week 8.
T Oct. 14
Reading: LePore and Loewer (“Mind Matters”) and Fodor (“Making Mind
Matter More”)
Topic: Proposed Metaphysical Solutions, Part 1: Causation and Laws
Week 9.
T Oct. 21
Reading: Kim (“Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction” )
and Lewis (“An Argument for the Identity Theory” )
Topic: Proposed Metaphysical Solutions, Part 2: Property Reduction
Week 10.
T Oct. 28
Reading: Yablo (“Mental Causation”) and Robb (“The Properties of Mental
Causation”)
Topic: Proposed Metaphysical Solutions, Part 3: Property Non-reduction
Dretske’s Explaining Behavior
Week 11.
T Nov. 4
Reading: Dretske (Preface and pp. 1-77, EB)
Topic: Dretske
Week 12.
T Nov. 11
Reading: Dretske (pp. 79-155, EB)
Topic: Dretske, cont’d
Content
Week 13.
T Nov. 18
Reading: Burge (“Individualism and the Mental”)
Topic: Wide Content
Week 14.
T Nov. 25
Reading: Fodor (“Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research
Strategy in Cognitive Psychology”) and Stich (“Autonomous Psychology and
the Belief-Desire Thesis”)
Topic: Methodological Solipsism
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Week 15.
T Dec. 2
Reading: Jackson and Pettit (pp. 259-282, MC) and Van Gulick
(“Metaphysical Arguments for Internalism and Why They Don’t Work”)
Topic: The Case for Narrow Content
Week 16.
T Dec. 9
Reading: None
Topic: Course Review
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