Dual-Condition Causation

November 2, 2012

2 pm, 601 Renwen

Lei Zhong, Professor of Philosophy at Lingnan University will give a talk on his solution to the so-called Causal Exclusion Argument. The exclusion problem, according to which if mental properties are non-identical with physical properties, mental properties would have no causal power, has been a serious challenge to non-reductive physicalism. Many proposed solutions to the exclusion problem succeed in rejecting only some simplified exclusion arguments, but fail to block a sophisticated version of the argument (see Zhong 2011, 2012). In this talk, I attempt to show that in order to reject the sophisticated exclusion argument, we need a sophisticated theory of causation, the 'Dual-condition Account of Causation' as I dub it, close ideas of which can be found as early as in Hume (1748) and most recently in Woodward (2008). First, I indicate tha/t the only plausible way to block the sophisticated exclusion argument is to deny the 'Inter-level Causation' principle. Second, I argue that this principle is unacceptable within the Dual-condition framework. Therefore, on this sophisticated account of causation, mental properties can be causally efficacious even if they are irreducible to physical properties.