Mental properties

Einally a Gibbs/Duhem equation is associated with each funda mental property relation ... 

Question 4 is about the chemistry of iron, linking bonding, transition mental properties, Bronsted-Lowry pairs, tests for Fe and redox titrations. 

Over the years a growing list of centrally active phenethylamines has become known, and many of these exert effects in human subjects that involve uniquely human mental properties, such as the religious or aesthetic sensibilities. In spite of the fact that these chemicals interact with uniquely human aspects of the mind, much of the work on their pharmacology has been conducted with animals. 

Although there are different variations of both reductive and nonreductive materialism, reductionists typically hold that mental properties can be defined in terms of or reduced to physical properties. Nonreductive materialists, on the other hand, typically hold that while all mental properties supervene on physical properties, mental properties can neither be defined in terms of nor reduced to physical properties. 

When referring to Kim as a reductionsit, I do not mean to imply that Kim thinks that everything mental can be reduced to the physical. Kim clearly thinks that any mental properties, if they are to be scientifically respectable causal properties, must be functionally reduced to their underlying physical realization base. Kim does, however, seem to have doubts about whether things like qualia can be reduced. Thus, Kim seems to hold that qualia may be real in some sense of the word, but qualia are probably not functionally reducible and therefore caimot be causal. See e.g. Kim 1998 ch. 4 and 2005 ch. 6. 

It is common place now (even amongst those who consider themselves reductionists) to think that mental properties are multiply realizable with respect to then-neural realizers. So type identical mental states can be realized by different neural states. Even within a single individual, the mental state of, say, being in pain, could be realized by a number of different brain states. There seems to be no one-to-one correspondence between mental types and physical types. 

Many have argued that mental properties can be context-dependent properties as well. Differences in one s external environment can result in the possibility of two type-identical brain states realizing two different mental states. Arguments for this view have often relied on twin-earth examples, where my doppelganger on twin earth is in a type-identical brain state as myself, yet these brain states realize different mental states. The differences in mental states are a result of slight differences in our external environments. 

This dissertation begins by discussing an issue that is central to all nonreductive materialist views - the problem of anomalous monism. Any nonreductive materialist view that does not want to accept the epiphenomenalism of mental properties must be able to show how irreducible mental properties can be causal properties. If the irreducibility of mental properties implies that there are no strict laws connecting mental properties to physical properties, then the question we must try to answer is how anomalous mental properties can be causal properties. In my first chapter, I submit an account of how anomalous mental properties can be causal properties. I argue that even if all events are backed by strict laws, strict laws do not always capture an event s unique causal properties. Thus, strict laws do not rule out irreducible anomalous mental properties as also being causally potent. 

This chapter will discuss the problem of how anomalous monism can accoimt for causation in virtue of mental properties. This is a pressing problem for nonreduetive materialists, sinee nonreduetive materialists generally hold that mental events and properties are anomalous (i.e. that there are no striet laws eonneeting mental types to physieal types). Donald Davidson holds the view of anomalous monism (AM), which is naturally seen as deriving fiom three premises (P). The three premises from whieh Davidson derives AM are is follows ... 

So on this view, although mental properties are distinct from and irreducible to physical properties, every mental event is token identical with some physical event. Thus, for example, the mental event of my being in pain might be token identical with the physical event of enhanced substance P production. So there would be, for instance, a single event E, which causes my behavior of sa)dng ouch . This event E has both physical properties (higher concentrations of substance P) and mental properties (painfulness). These mental properties supervene on the physical properties, but yet are irreducible to the physical. 

This problem is not an argument against AM, since it is consistent with the truth of AM along with the epiphenomenalism of mental properties. It does, however, pose a challenge to AM to show how mental... 

If this were the case, then some might wonder how mental properties, which are not connected to the physical by strict laws, could be causally potent. Let us say we have a particular case of causation where one event A causes another event B. By the nomological requirement, there is some exceptionless law that connects events of type A... 

So the question we need to ask when deciding whether the anomalousness of mental properties really leads to their epiphenomenalism is as follows Do strict laws always identify the only causally efficacious properties I will return to this question shortly. 

First, I want to discuss how Davidson attempts to reply to criticisms that claim that AM leads to the epiphenomenalism of mental properties. The literature criticizing... 

What I want to focus on here is Davidson s argument that his view does not lead to the epiphenomenalism of mental properties. Davidson seems to argue here that the supervenience of mental properties on the physical will ensure their causal efficacy. For example, Davidson says ... 

If supervenience holds, psychological properties make a difference to the causal relations of an event, for they matter to the physical properties, and the physical properties matter to causal relations. It does nothing to undermine this argument to say But the mental properties make a difference not as mental but only because they make a difference to the physical properties . Either they make a difference or they don t if supervenience is true, they do (1993 14). 

Davidson, I think, is led to this particular line of defense because of his views about causation. Davidson holds an extensionalist view of causation - i.e., that causation is a relation between non-abstract particular events. Thus he says, But it is also irrelevant to the causal efficacy of physical events that they can be described in the physical vocabulary. It is events that have the power to change things, not our various ways of describing them (Davidson 1993 12). Since it is events that are causes, then any properties that are relevant to what a particular event causes are causal properties. Davidson says, But properties are causally efficacious if they make a difference to what individual events cause, and supervenience ensures that mental properties do make a difference to what mental events cause (1993 15). So since mental properties supervene on physical properties, and physical properties make a difference to what an event causes, mental properties also make a causal difference. 

Thus, Davidson s claim that because mental properties supervene on physical properties and physical properties make a difference to what an event causes will not do. Events have lots of properties, and not even all of the events physical properties will always be causal with respect to each case of causation. In any case of causation we consider, we can and should ask, In virtue of which properties did event A cause event B Davidson is wrong to think that questions like this make no sense. 

For me, it is events that have causes and effects. Given this extensionalist view of causal relations, it makes no literal sense, as I remarked above, to speak of an event causing something as mental, or by virtue of its mental properties, or as described in one way or another (Davidson 1993 13). 

Thus, Davidson s claim that supervenience saves mental causation falls short. Davidson is wrong to think that the question, hi virtue of which properties did event A cause event B makes no sense. To save AM fi om the epiphenomenalism of mental properties, we need a way to show how it is possible for causation to be in virtue of mental properties. The question is whether the anomalism of the mental will make it impossible for mental properties to be the one s in virtue of which events are causes. 

Do Strict Laws Rule out the Causal Potency of Mental Properties ... 

Let us now take a preliminary look at how to make sense of causation in virtue of irreducible mental properties. If we are going to assume, for the purposes of this discussion, that Davidson has not quite done enough to get property causation, then we need to find a different way to make sense of property causation. Before we can do this, we need to make sure that this project is even possible. If strict laws will rule out causation in virtue of irreducible mental properties, then it is hard to see how any approach other than Davidson s appeal to supervenience and non-strict laws could possibly save property causation. If, however, strict laws do not rule out causation in virtue of irreducible mental properties, then we will be in a position to try to find out how irreducible mental properties can be causal. 

So if all cases of causation are backed by strict laws, do these striet laws always eapture the unique causally efficacious properties If the answer to this questions is no , then the anomalism of mental properties will not rule out the eausal effieaey of mental properties. If strict laws do not always capture an event s only eausal properties, and thereby do not rule out the causal potency of other properties not eited in these striet laws, then we eould still have causation in virtue of mental properties. We could have an event that is backed by a strict law, a law which could accurately describe the event in terms of physics. However, there could be another causal explanation, one that is perhaps a better causal explanation in certain contexts, which cites causally efficacious mental properties in its explanation. Mental properties could be the properties in virtue of which the event is caused, even though we could also accurately describe the event in... 

Thus, the fact that there are no strict psycho-physical causal laws should not rule out the causal efficacy of mental properties. The fact that we cannot cite mental properties in our strict laws does not mean that mental properties cannot be causal properties. Biological properties are not eited in strict laws, but yet they are the types of properties we think of as eausal in seience. Strict laws wiU always (or at least almost always) be in terms of physies, yet there are many properties at higher levels of organization that we believe to be causal properties. These considerations seem to leave open the possibility that mental properties too eould be eausal, even though they ean never be cited in strict laws. This, of course, does not prove that mental properties are causal properties. What it does show is that the anomalism of the mental does not rule out the causal efficacy of mental properties. More needs to be said on this subject before a positive account of mental causation can emerge. But at least now, we are in a position where we can begin to set forth a theory of how irreducible mental properties could be... 

This type of objection to nonreductive materialism is central to the work of Jaegwon Kim. Kim discusses this objection extensively in the various versions of his exclusion argument or supervenience argument. He holds that the only way to give mental properties a causal role is to functionally reduce them to physical properties, since physical causation will always rule out causation in virtue of irreducible mental... 

This objection does not rely on the assumption that all events of causation are backed by strict laws. Certainly one can argue that if all events of causation are backed by strict laws, then the strict law (at the level of physics) will always give us what we need for causation and leave no causal work for mental properties to do. But one could also make a similar argument that irreducible mental properties will always be epiphenomenal, since we can always describe the causation in physical terms. Whether our description in physical terms is in the form of a strict law or not, the essence of die objection remains the same. See chapters 2 and 3 ahead for more on this type of objection to nonreductive materialism. 

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