Sydney Shoemaker has been arguing for more than a decade for an account of the mind-body problem in which the notion of realization takes centre stage. His aim is to provide a notion of realization that is consistent with the multiple realizability of mental properties or events, and which explains: (i) how the physical grounds the mental; and (ii) why the causal work of mental events is not screened off by that of physical events. Shoemaker's proposal consists of individuating properties in terms of causal powers, and defining realization as a relation of inclusion between sets of causal powers. Thus, as the causal powers that define a mental property are a subset of the causal powers that characterize a physical property, it can be said that physical properties realize mental properties. In this paper we examine the physicalist credentials of Shoemaker's mind-body theory in relation to three important issues: the direction of the relation of dependence that the theory is committed to; the possibility of mental properties existing without being anchored by physical properties; and the compatibility of the theory with the causal closure of the physical world. We argue that Shoemaker's theory is problematic in all three respects. After that we consider whether the theory should count as a mind-body theory at all, given that it seems to be committed to a distorted view of mental propertieResearch leading to this work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, research grants FFI2012-37354, FFI2014-52196-P and Consolider-Ingenio Project CSD2009-00056
The article is divided into two parts. The first part offers a careful reconstruction and detailed discussion of the argument of causal exclusion, as well as of the implications it has for physicalism. In its second part the article examines two important objections to the causal exclusion argument: the generalization objection, which holds that the argument is unacceptable since it confers causal efficacy only to ultimate basic properties, which arguably might not exist; and Yablo’s objection, according to which underlying the argument of causal exclusion there is a principle of causal parsimony which leads to strong counterintuitive results and should therefore be abandoned. The article offers grounds for rejecting both objections as well as a new diagnosis of the problem for mental causation generated by the causal exclusion argument.
Jesse Prinz’s recent perceptual theory of emotion honors the central Jamesian claim that the emotion follows, and is actually caused by, the syndrome of bodily changes which are typical of emotional reactions. Prinz also thinks that emotions essentially involve appraisals of the object of emotion but, in the light of certain arguments supporting the central Jamesian claim, he concludes that these appraisals must be in any case embodied. In this paper, I will first raise three concerns with Prinz’s view and, second, I will present an alternative, the multidimensional appraisal theory of emotion, and argue that this alternative can accommodate successfully the Jamesian arguments without any need to honor the central Jamesian claim.
In this paper I offer a defense of the motivational theory of desire. According to the motivational view, a desire is basically a disposition to bring about the desire’s content. First, I argue that two rival views on the nature of desire, the evaluative theory and the deontic theory, fall prey to the problem of the death of desire and that, when one tries to develop a plausible version of these theories which is able to overcome this problem, one ends up with a view that is not relevantly different from the evaluative view. Second, I respond to some objections to the claim that motivations are sufficient for desire, namely, the Radioman objection and the objection that some motivational states like intentions and habits are not desires.
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