Abstract
In this thesis, I defend the genuine efficacy of mental causation, given both mental-physical supervenience and a causally complete physics. In so doing, I defend the mutual autonomy of psychology and physics.This is principally achieved through a proposed dissolution of the Exclusion Problem. By focusing upon the role of supervenience in supposedly generating ‘diagonal’ causal relations between levels, I show that non-reductive physicalists need not accept the crux of the problem: the alleged entailment of systematic overdetermination. I argue that such overdetermination depends upon the obtaining of diagonal causation, and such causation is only entailed given further, auxiliary assumptions that might plausibly be resisted.
I also offer arguments to show that the above should not be taken to suggest a form of causal parallelism, on which there is no causal interaction between the mental and physical. There are plausible cases of mental-physical causation that are consistent with my arguments against the Exclusion Problem, and with a prohibition on systematic overdetermination, because they are not cases of supervenience-based causation. I therefore claim we have good grounds for thinking there can be mental to physical causation.
Beyond this, the thesis also develops a diagnosis of Exclusion worries through engaging with a recent Interventionist solution to the Exclusion Problem. I argue that the shortcomings of this solution are rooted in the same oversights from which more general Exclusion worries emerge.
Finally, I offer a speculative solution to two related concerns for Interventionists: intuitions of mental causal redundancy given the completeness of physics, and tensions internal to Interventionism with respect to causal relations within physics. I argue that both might be relieved by adopting causal pluralism, by which psychological causal relations are conceived in terms of correlations under intervention, and physical causation in terms of nomological regularity.
Date of Award | 2022 |
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Original language | English |
Awarding Institution |
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Supervisor | Bill Brewer (Supervisor) & Matthew Soteriou (Supervisor) |