Physicalism and overdetermination

The Exclusion Problem Meets the Problem of Many Causes

“…I will say that an event is micro-based if its constituent property is a micro-based property. 4 However, Sturgeon (1998) has claimed that it is not part of science or commonsense that mental events have low-level physical effects. In effect, Sturgeon claims that the plausibility of completeness and of the causal efficacy of the mental trade on distinct senses of 'physical.'…”

On Kim’s exclusion principle

“…Several authors (Baker 1998;Sturgeon 1998Sturgeon , 1999 have attempted to defend a more nuanced version of the two-event dual explanandum reply that avoids Kim's rejoinder to Dretske. Central to this tactic is the suggestion that the mental event is a higher level event which is irreducible to basic physical properties.…”

“…The idea seems to be that the alternative explanations function at different levels, and given the irreducibility of the mental there is no danger that explanations appealed to at a "higher" level could be pre-empted by explanations at a "lower" level. Sturgeon (1998), for example, distinguishes between the bottom quantum level and the broadly physical level that includes such things as handshakes and the felling of trees. He then argues that mental states cause broadly physical effects such as handshaking, but they do not cause quantum events.…”

The CQ theory and physicalism

“…Desde hace unas dos décadas, uno de los principales problemas del antirreduccionista consiste en dar con una salida al siguiente «problema de la exclusión» (Kim, 1993) o «argumento de la sobredeterminación» (Sturgeon, 1998): No obstante, cabe, como se hace en 3, desestimar la idea de que, por ejemplo, los movimientos de nuestros cuerpos estén causados por causas mentales y causas físicas que son mutuamente independientes. Tendemos a pensar, y hasta el momento parece que razonablemente, que el mundo es tan simple como pueda serlo.…”