Sven Walter

I will discuss two possible options how a defender of the type identity-theory with respect to mental properties can avoid the conclusion of Putnam's Multiple Realizability Argument. I begin by offering a rigorous formulation of Putnam's argument, which has been lacking so far in the literature (section 2). This rigorous formulation shows that there are basically two possible options for avoiding the argument's conclusion. Contrary to current mainstream, I reject the first option?Kim's 'local reductionism'?as untenable (section 3). I endorse the second option, which has been brought into discredit by being too closely associated with disjunctive properties. I first show that many of the criticisms of disjunctive properties miss their target or beg the question against their opponent view (sections 4 & 5). Then I argue that it is not necessary to tie the second option closely to disjunctive properties. Hence, even if we deny the legitimacy of disjunctive properties, the identity-theorist still need not accept the conclusion of the Multiple Realizability Argument since there is an alternative, though related, way to spell out the second response (section 6)

The realization relation that allegedly holds between mental and physical properties plays a crucial role for so-called non-reductive physicalism because it is supposed to secure both the ontological autonomy of mental properties and, despite their irreducibility, their ability to make a causal difference to the course of the causally closed physical world. For a long time however, the nature of realization has largely been ignored in the philosophy of mind until a couple of years ago authors like Carl Gillett, Derk Pereboom, or Sydney Shoemaker proposed accounts according to which realization is understood against the background of the so-called 'causal theory of properties'. At least partially, the hope was to solve the problem of mental causation, in particular the kind of causal exclusion reasoning made famous by Jaegwon Kim, in a way acceptable to nonreductive physicalists. The paper asks whether a proper explication of the realization relation can indeed help explain how physically realized mental properties can be causally efficacious in the causally closed physical world and argues for a negative answer: it is important for the non-reductive physicalist to understand what exactly the realization relation amounts to, but it does not solve the problem of mental causation

Der Epiphänomenalismus ist eine Position in der Philosophie des Geistes, wonach mentale Ereignisse zwar vollständige physikalische Ursachen haben, selbst aber keine Ursachen oder Teilursachen anderer Ereignisse sind. Entgegen einer weit verbreiteten Meinung tritt die vorliegende Arbeit dafür ein, dass der Epiphänomenalismus keineswegs vollkommen absurd und unhaltbar ist. Es wird zunächst dafür argumentiert, dass er einige der gegen ihn üblicherweise erhobenen Einwände zwar sehr leicht entkräften kann, an anderen jedoch aus Gründen, die bislang kaum beachtet wurden, zu scheitern droht. Anschließend wird eine Strategie diskutiert, mittels derer sich der Epiphänomenalismus unter bestimmten Bedingungen gegen einen Großteil der Einwände immunisieren kann; zugleich werden jedoch aber auch einige interne Schwierigkeiten angesprochen, die in diesem Zusammenhang zu Tage treten und den Epiphänomenalismus vor bislang in ihrer Tragweite nicht hinreichend erfasste Probleme stellen. Die Arbeit schließt mit einigen Spekulationen zu einer alternativen Variante des Epiphänomenalismus, die einen Teil dieser Probleme vermeiden kann