Josep E. Corbi

In the ongoing debate, there are a set of mind-body theories sharing a certain physicalist assumption: whenever a genuine cause produces an effect, the causal efficacy of each of the nonphysical properties that participate in that process is determined by the instantiation of a well-defined set of physical properties. These theories would then insist that a nonphysical property could only be causally efficacious insofar as it is physically implemented. However, in what follows we will argue against the idea that fine-grained mental contents could be physically implemented in the way that functional properties are. Therefore, we will examine the metaphysical conditions under which the implementing mechanism of a particular instance of a functional property may be individuated, and see how genuine beliefs and desires—insofar as they track the world—cannot meet such conditions.

En su Investigación sobre el entendimiento humano, David Hume consideró la cuestión de las relaciones entre libertad y necesidad como “el tema más discutido de la metafísica, la ciencia más discutida”. El debate sobre esta venerable cuestión sigue siendo hoy tan vivo como lo fue en tiempos de Hume. El presente volumen colectivo es una buena muestra de ello. Los ensayos que lo forman, escritos desde una pluralidad de perspectivas, ponen de manifiesto la complejidad y la unidad interna del problema al que responden. Elaborados con un estilo carente de tecnicismos, pero no de rigor, estos Ensayos sobre libertad y necesidad despertarán el interés tanto de la persona culta como del especialista en filosofía.

As I see bus no. 29 approaching, I raise my arm. The bus stops, I take a few steps and get on it. This happens because the driver, having seen my arm raised, interpreted the gesture as a conventional expression of my wish to get on the bus. If it had been bus no. 17, I would not have raised my arm because I know that that bus follows quite a different route. This is not, of course, the end of the story. I might also mention the reasons why I really wanted route 29, and so on. Fortunately, there is no need to go into the details. The important point is that in the explanation of this trivial set of actions I can quite naturally appeal to a number of mental states: perceptions, beliefs, interpretations, desires, etc. The previous story assumes, for instance, that.