PHIL 5973: Mental Causation Seminar
Eric Funkhouser
Possible metaphysics paper topics
11/17/03
Feel free to write your final paper on any material that we covered this semester. In case
you’re having a difficult time coming up with a topic, here are some possibilities. If you
want to write on something that doesn’t fall under any of these areas, meet with me to talk
about your paper before you start writing it.
--How should epiphenomenalism be defined? What is the best response to the “in virtue
of” objection, as raised against Davidson’s AM? What must be the case, in general, for Xcausation to occur? What relation must mental properties bear to physical effects (e.g.,
human action) in order to avoid the charge of epiphenomenalism? Are mental properties
related to action as such?
Relevant readings: Davidson’s “Mental Events” and “Psychology as Philosophy”;
Davidson, Kim, McLaughlin, and Sosa (MC, pp. 3-50); LePore and Loewer’s “Mind
Matters”; Fodor’s “Making Mind Matter More”
--How should the causal relata (e.g., events, properties, tropes, etc.) or the causal relation be
understood, so as to best account for mental causation (more generally: X-causation)?
Relevant readings: Davidson’s “Mental Events”, “Psychology as Philosophy”, and
“Thinking Causes”; Kim’s “Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction”;
LePore and Loewer’s “Mind Matters”; Fodor’s “Making Mind Matter More”; Lewis’s
“An Argument for the Identity Theory”; Yablo’s “Mental Causation”; Robb’s “The
Properties of Mental Causation”
--Which premises and/or inferences of exclusion arguments (e.g., our “Master Exclusion
Argument”) should be rejected in order to save mental causation? Defend your suggested
solution.
--Examine Kim’s arguments against non-reductive materialism. Does Microphysical
Supervenience (MS), Microphysical Closure (MC), and property non-reduction (NR) exclude
the possibility of macro-causation?
Relevant readings: Kim (MC, pp. 189-210)
--Should the metaphysical, causal exclusion argument for epiphenomenalism even be taken
seriously? Should we accept some kind of causal exclusion principle?
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Relevant readings:
Against: Baker (MC, pp. 75-95--also see the Burge reading in MC); Dennett (e.g., on
“real patterns”); Van Gulick (MC, pp. 233-256)
For: Kim’s “Mechanism, Purpose, and Explanatory Exclusion”; Yablo’s “Mental
Causation”
--Does the multiple realizability of the mental show that psychology is not autonomous?
Relevant readings: Kim’s “Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction”;
Fodor’s “Special Sciences: Still Autonomous After All These Years”
--Is there a significant distinction between “real”, “genuine”, or “intrinsic” intentional
explanations and “as if” or “derived” intentional explanations?
Relevant readings: Dennett (throughout The Intentional Stance); Dretske (chapters 3
and 4 of Explaining Behavior)
--Are reasons explanations in psychology similar in kind to reasons explanations in
evolutionary biology?
Relevant readings: Dennett (essays 7 and 8); Dretske (chapters 3 and 4 of Explaining
Behavior)
--Should we accept Dretske’s distinction between behavior and movement (output)? Does
this distinction greatly aid in solving the problem of mental causation?
Relevant readings: Dretske (chapters 1 and 2 of Explaining Behavior)
--To the extent that mental content is “wide”, are content properties causally inefficacious?
Should we accept Stich’s principle of autonomy or Fodor’s methodological solipsism?
Relevant readings:
For: Fodor’s “Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy”; Stich’s
“Autonomous Psychology and the Belief-Desire Thesis”; Jackson and Pettit (MC,
pp. 259-282)
Against: Burge’s “Individualism and the Mental”; Van Gulick’s “Metaphysical
Arguments for Internalism and Why They Don’t Work”
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