The Causal Exclusion Problem

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• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781433122675
• eBook ISBN: 9781453910962
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Logic in Philosophy

In The Causal Exclusion Problem, the popular strategy of abandoning any one of the principles constituting the causal exclusion problem is considered, but ultimately rejected. The metaphysical foundations undergirding the causal exclusion problem are then explored, revealing that the causal exclusion problem cannot be dislodged by undermining its metaphysical foundations – as some are in the habit of doing. Finally, the significant difficulties associated with the bevy of contemporary nonreductive solutions, from supervenience to emergentism, are expanded upon. While conducting this survey of contemporary options, however, two novel approaches are introduced, both of which may resolve the causal exclusion problem from within a nonreductive physicalist paradigm.
The Causal Exclusion Problem, which relentlessly motivates the vexing causal exclusion problem and exhaustively surveys its metaphysical assumptions and contemporary responses, is ideal for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course in the philosophy of mind.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgments
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Principle Of Mental Causation
• Chapter Two: The Principle of Physical Causal Completeness
• Chapter Three: The Principle of Irreducibility
• Chapter Four: The Principle of Causal Exclusion
• Chapter Five: Causal Exclusion and Causation
• Chapter Six: Causal Exclusion, Events and Properties
• Chapter Seven: Causal Exclusion and Mereological Systems
• Chapter Eight: Nonreductive Solutions
• Chapter Nine: Mereological Emergentism
• Bibliography