Explanatory exclusion and mental explanation

Jaegwon Kim once refrained from excluding distinct mental causes of effects that depend upon the sufficient physical cause of the effect (Kim, 1984 Kim, J. (1984). "Epiphenomenal and Supervenient Causation", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 9, p. 257–270.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). At that time, Kim also refrained from excluding distinct mental explanations of effects that depend upon complete physical explanations of the effect (Kim, 1988 Kim, J. (1988). Explanatory realism, causal realism, and explanatory exclusion. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 12, 225–239.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1989 Kim, J. (1989). Mechanism, purpose, and explanatory exclusion. Philosophical Perspectives, 3, 77–108.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). More recently, he has excluded distinct mental causes of effects that depend upon the sufficient cause of the effect, since the physical cause is individually sufficient for the effect (Kim, 2005 Kim, J. (2005). Physicalism, or something near enough. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]). But there has been, to this point, no parallel shift in the explanatory realm, such that distinct mental explanations of effects that depend upon complete physical explanations of the effect are excluded since the physical explanation is objectively complete. In this paper I consider, defend, and apply this update to the principle of explanatory exclusion—an update, which, in the final analysis, demonstrates a significant advantage that non-reductive physicalism has over reductive physicalism.