Mental Manipulations and the Problem of Causal Exclusion

Leibniz has long faced a challenge about the coherence of the distinction between necessary and contingent truths in his philosophy. In this paper, I propose and examine a new way to save genuine contingency within a Leibnizian framework. I conclude that it succeeds in formally solving the problem, but at unbearable cost. I present Leibniz's challenge by considering God's choice of the best possible world (Sect. 2). God necessarily exists and necessarily chooses to actualize the best possible world. The actual world therefore could not be different, for if it were different it would be a distinct and inferior world and hence would not be created. In Section 3, I defend Leibniz from this challenge. I argue that, while it is necessary for God to choose to create the best possible world, it is not necessary for any world to be the best possible. This is because the criterion for judging perfection can itself be contingent. Different criteria will judge different worlds as the best. Thus it is necessary for God to create the best, but not necessary which is the best. Distinguishing between possible worlds in Leibniz's sense and in the modern sense allows a fuller exposition of this position. There are worries that can arise with the claim that the criterion of perfection is contingent. I consider two of the most pressing (Sect. 4). The first argues that the criterion is in God's understanding and hence is necessary; the second alleges that a contingent criterion of perfection violates Leibniz's cherished Principle of Sufficient Reason. These worries are well grounded, and examining them reveals a deep incompatibility between this solution and Leibniz's metaphysical views. I conclude that there is a real solution available, but that it is unacceptable to Leibniz or a Leibnizian. The search for a genuine solution that is genuinely Leibnizian goes on.     

The Inherent Empirical Underdetermination of Mental Causation

It has become a popular view among non-reductive physicalists that it is possible to devise empirical tests generating evidence for the causal efficacy of the mental, whereby the exclusion worries that have haunted the position of non-reductive physicalism for decades can be dissolved once and for all. This paper aims to show that these evidentialist hopes are vain. I argue that, if the mental is taken to supervene non-reductively on the physical, there cannot exist empirical evidence for its causal efficacy. While causal structures without non-reductive supervenience relations can be conclusively identified in ideal discovery circumstances, it is impossible, in principle, to generate evidence that would favour models with mental causation over models without. Ascribing causal efficacy to the mental, for the non-reductive physicalist, is a modelling choice that must be made on the basis of metaphysical background theories or pragmatic maxims guiding the selection among empirically indistinguishable models.     

Mental causation,compatibilism and counterfactuals

According to proponents of the causal exclusion problem, there cannot be a sufficient physical cause and a distinct mental cause of the same piece of behaviour. Increasingly, the causal exclusion problem is circumvented via this compatibilist reasoning: a sufficient physical cause of the behavioural effect necessitates the mental cause of the behavioural effect, so the effect has a sufficient physical cause and a mental cause as well. In this paper, I argue that this compatibilist reply fails to resolve the causal exclusion problem.     

The Causal Closure of Physics: An Explanation and Critique

Bistable, autonomously growing and self‐maintaining dynamical systems possess a new mathematical and applicational aspect: they can switch toward (physical) existence. Larger dynamical systems containing such flip‐flops as subsystems are frequent. The mathematical prototype is a special type of Z₂‐networks, termed a competence automaton. A chemical implementation is the ‘magic soup.’ It constitutes a general model for life‐type evolution processes including economic evolution.     

The Entailment Problem and the Subset Account of Property Realization

Proponents of the subset account of property realization commonly make the assumption that the summing of properties entails the summing of their forward-looking causal features. This paper seeks to establish that this assumption is false. Moreover, it aims to demonstrate that without this assumption the fact that the subset account captures an entailment relation—which it must if it is to be of any use to non-reductive physicalism—becomes questionable.     

Interventionism and Causal Exclusion

A number of writers, myself included, have recently argued that an “interventionist” treatment of causation of the sort defended in Woodward, 2003 can be used to cast light on so‐called “causal exclusion” arguments. This interventionist treatment of causal exclusion has in turn been criticized by other philosophers. This paper responds to these criticisms. It describes an interventionist framework for thinking about causal relationships when supervenience relations are present. I contend that this framework helps us to see that standard arguments for causal exclusion involve mistaken assumptions about what it is appropriate to control for or hold fixed in assessing causal claims. The framework also provides a natural way of capturing the idea that properties that supervene on but that are not identical with realizing properties can be causally efficacious.     

Causal Exclusion and Multiple Realizations

A critical analysis of recent interventionist responses to the causal exclusion problem is presented. It is argued that the response can indeed offer a solution to the problem, but one that is based on renouncing the multiple realizability thesis. The account amounts to the rejection of nonreductive physicalism and would thus be unacceptable to many. It is further shown that if the multiple realizability thesis is brought back in and conjoined with the interventionist notion of causation, inter-level causation is ruled out altogether.     

Causal Powers and the Necessity of Realization

Non-reductive physicalists hold that mental properties are realized by physical properties. The realization relation is typically taken to be a metaphysical necessitation relation. Here, I explore how the metaphysical necessitation feature of realization can be explained by what is known as ‘the subset view’ of realization. The subset view holds that the causal powers that are associated with a realized property are a proper subset of the causal powers that are associated with the realizer property. I argue that the said explanation of the metaphysical necessitation feature requires a careful treatment of the relationship between properties and causal powers.     

Exclusion performance and learning by exclusion in dogs

Responding by exclusion is a type of emergent repertoire in which an individual chooses an alternative by the apparent exclusion of other available alternatives. In this case it is possible to respond appropriately to an undefined stimulus (one that has not previously acquired discriminative functions) by excluding the defined alternatives. There is evidence of exclusion in humans and nonhuman animals, although learning as an outcome of exclusion does not always occur. This study aimed to investigate exclusion in visual simple discriminations and learning of new simple discriminations resulting from exclusion in four border collies. Subjects were trained to perform simple simultaneous discriminations between pairs of tridimensional objects, and were then tested for exclusion, novelty control and learning of new simple discriminations. All dogs successfully responded by exclusion, choosing an undefined stimulus displayed with an S‐. For three dogs, it was possible to conclude that these previously undefined stimuli acquired S+ functions, documenting learning of new simple discriminations. However, this required up to four exposures to exclusion trials with each pair of stimuli.     

Culture and Causal Cognition

East Asian and American causal reasoning differs significantly. East Asians understand behavior in terms of complex interactions between dispositions of the person or other object and contextual factors, whereas Americans often view social behavior primarily as the direct unfolding of dispositions. These culturally differing causal theories seem to be rooted in more pervasive, culture-specific mentalities in East Asia and the West. The Western mentality is analytic, focusing attention on the object, categorizing it by reference to its attributes, and ascribing causality based on rules about it. The East Asian mentality is holistic, focusing attention on the field in which the object is located and ascribing causality by reference to the relationship between the object and the field.     

关于pCI与因果判断的实验研究

本研究通过三个实验,检验了pCI公式对人类因果判断预测的准确性。实验结果发现,被试的判断与pCI的预测趋势基本一致,但（a＋d）／n的预测似乎更加准确;被试的判断较pCI而言波动较小,且可能在开始判断时需要一段时间形成自己的判断标准或方法,之后的判断与精密的数学计算有共同之处;不同个体判断方式有比较大的差异,但是仍能归为一些类型。     

Absence Causation and a Liberal Theory of Causal Explanation

For the framework of event causation—i.e. the framework according to which causation is a relation between events—absences or omissions pose a problem. Absences, it is generally agreed, are not events; so, under the framework of event causation, they cannot be causally related. But, as a matter of fact, absences are often taken to be causes or effects. The problem of absence causation is thus how to make sense of causation that apparently involves absences as causes or effects. In an influential paper, Helen Beebee offers a partial solution to the problem by giving an account of causation by absence (i.e. causation in which absences are supposed to be causes). I argue that Beebee's account can be extended to cover causation of absence (i.e. causation in which absences are supposed to be effects) as well. More importantly, I argue that the extended Beebeeian account calls for a major modification to David Lewis's theory of causal explanation, usually taken as standard. Compared to the standard theory, the result of this modification, which I shall call ‘the liberal theory of causal explanation’, has, among other things, the advantage of being able to accommodate causal explanations in which the explananda are not given in terms of events.     

Seventy Years in Philosophy of Mind: An Overview,with Emphasis on the Issue of Mental Causation

This paper is an opinionated overview of major developments in philosophy of mind during the past seventy years, with emphasis on the issue of mental causation. Its most prominent positions all embrace a broadly “naturalistic” or “materialistic” conception of human beings, and of mentality and its place in nature. Included in this paper are discussions of analytical behaviorism, the psychophysical identity theory, functionalism, multiple realizability and strong multiple realizability, supervenience, the causal exclusion problem, phenomenal mental states, wide content, contextualist causal compatibilism, agentive phenomenology, and the agent-exclusion problem.     

权力感对社会排斥下自我关注的调节作用

采用实验法探讨在回忆和现实排斥情境下,不同社会排斥类型对大学生外显和内隐自我关注的影响及权力感的调节作用。实验1初步证实在两种排斥情境下,与拒绝型相比,忽视型被试的外显和内隐自我关注水平较高。实验2进一步证实权力感在忽视型对外显自我关注的影响中具有调节作用。结果表明,忽视型社会排斥威胁功效需要进而引发个体提高自我关注水平;情境因素对社会排斥产生的影响相同。     

Construal Level and Social Exclusion: Concrete Thinking Impedes Recovery From Social Exclusion

Social exclusion is a painful experience. Recent research has shown, however, that coping with exclusion can be facilitated by favorable conditions. In the current research, we investigated whether construal level affects recovery from social exclusion. We hypothesized that an abstract vs. concrete mindset would moderate coping with exclusion. Indeed, lower compared to higher concrete thinking (Study 1) and abstract compared to concrete thinking (Study 2) bolstered the basic need of belonging when excluded. Priming of abstract thinking, moreover, increased participants’ sense of belonging both in response to exclusion and inclusion relative to no priming (Study 3). Our results are the first to establish a relationship between construal level and social exclusion, thereby suggesting an alleviating “abstraction discount” effect for the consequences of social exclusion.     

Kim’s Supervenience Argument and Nonreductive Physicalism

The aim of this paper is to show that Kim’s ‚supervenience argument’ is at best inconclusive and so fails to provide an adequate challenge to nonreductive physicalism. I shall argue, first, that Kim’s argument rests on assumptions that the nonreductive physicalist is entitled to regard as question-begging; second, that even if those assumptions are granted, it is not clear that irreducible mental causes fail to␣satisfy them; and, third, that since the argument has the overall structure of a reductio, which of its various premises one performs the reductio on remains open to debate in an interesting way. I shall finally suggest that the issue of reductive vs. nonreductive physicalism is best contested not in the arena of mental causation but in that in which the issues pertaining to theory and property reduction are currently being debated.     

说明文阅读中因果序列的表征

结合自定步调阅读与句子启动再认范式, 探讨说明文阅读过程中因果序列的表征问题。研究包括3个实验, 实验1的文本提供一个包括4个概念的因果链(如, A－B－C－D), 文本最后设置包含概念A或概念B或概念C的句子, 对概念D进行探测, 结果发现, 对于概念D的再认启动作用, 概念C＞概念B＞概念A; 实验2改变因果链的说明顺序, 使之与因果链本身次序不一致, 结果与实验1一致; 实验3的文本分别介绍两条独立的因果链(如A－B－C; D－E－F), 最后呈现包含概念A或概念D的句子, 对概念C进行探测, 结果发现, 包含概念A的句子理解启动了相关因果链, 使读者对随后呈现的概念C的再认反应加快。基于本研究结果, 结合相关研究, 本文尝试提出说明文文本表征的建构模式。     

Causal models and the assessment-treatment relationship in behavior therapy

The relationship between causal models in behavior therapy and strategies for designing intervention programs on the basis of assessment data is considered. The evolution away from simple univariate causal models is noted and complex causal models for behavior disorders are stressed. However, complex causal models currently preclude empirically based functional analytic and keystone target behavior assessment strategies for intervention design. Future directions for intervention design involving a combination of diagnostic, functional, analytic, and keystone strategies and markers for causal paths are discussed.     

Causal Models Drive Preference between Drugs that Treat a Focal versus Multiple Symptoms

This research examines the effects of causal beliefs on drug preference. In three studies, 374 undergraduate participants imagined that they suffered from a focal symptom and then indicated their preference between a drug claiming to treat only the focal symptom (single treatment) and a drug claiming to treat the focal symptom and a nonfocal symptom (dual treatment) they thought resulted from a common‐cause or from a different cause. Participants who thought that the symptoms resulted from different causes significantly preferred the single treatment drug more and the dual treatment drug less than participants who thought the symptoms resulted from a common‐cause. Process analysis yielded a significant mediation effect. Specifically, an individual's causal model determines preference by affecting the estimates of the potential gain and loss associated with using each drug. Participants who held a common‐cause model concerning the source of the symptoms thought they would be more likely to need the nonfocal treatment provided by the dual treatment drug and less likely to suffer from side effects when taking this drug, than those with a different‐cause model. The results demonstrate the influence of causal structure on judgment and choice. © 2017 The Authors Journal of Behavioral Decision Making Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Reduction,Autonomy, and Causal Exclusion Among Physical Properties

Synthese - Is there a problem of causal exclusion between micro- and macro-level physical properties? I argue (following Kim) that the sorts of properties thatin fact are in competition are macro...