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3© 2014 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. Using genome-wide data from 253,288 individuals, we identified 697 variants at genome-wide significance that together explained one-fifth of the heritability for adult height. By testing different numbers of variants in independent studies, we show that the most strongly associated 1/42,000, 1/43,700 and 1/49,500 SNPs explained 1/421%, 1/424% and 1/429% of phenotypic variance. Furthermore, all common variants together captured 60% of heritability.…Read more
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20On the causal arguments for physicalismAsian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1): 1-11. 2024.In his paper, “A Causal Argument for Physicalism” (Zhong, 2023), Zhong presents a novel argument for non-reductive physicalism (which he calls “A2”), based on the causal argument for reductive physicalism (which he calls “A1”), and claims that A2 is better than A1 since the premises in A2 are more plausible than those in A1. In this paper, I will argue that A2 fails to be a sound argument for non-reductive physicalism, or even physicalism per se, because the premises in A2 can be fulfilled by th…Read more
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147How to unify grounding and causationSynthese 202 (1): 1-18. 2023.The unification of grounding and causation has been proposed in the literature. Also, it has encountered many objections. In this paper, I argue that there is a strategy that enables us to reply to many of the objections to the unification. That is the ‘blame the relata strategy’ which claims that all the differences between grounding and causation come from relata rather than relation. I clarify this strategy by appealing to positionalism about relations, and present three arguments for this st…Read more
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423Trope Mental Causation: Still Not Qua MentalErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8 (n/a). 2022.A popular solution to the causal exclusion problem in the non-reductive physicalist camp is the trope identity solution. But this solution is haunted by the “quausation problem” which charges that the trope only confers causal powers qua physical, not qua mental. Although proponents of the trope solution have responded to the problem by denying the existence of properties of tropes, I do not find their reply satisfactory. Rather, I believe they have missed the core presupposition behind the quau…Read more
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106Exclusion, subset realization, and part‐whole relationsRatio 35 (1): 5-15. 2022.The subset realization view proposes to solve the causal exclusion problem of non‐reductive mental instances by taking the mental instance as a part of its physical realizer. Many philosophers have argued that such a part‐whole relation will undermine physicalist realization because parts are ontologically prior to their wholes and the subset view is thus flawed. I argue that the relation that the subset view should propose is different from the ordinary part‐whole relation. What they should pro…Read more
Wenjun Zhang
South China Normal University
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South China Normal UniversityAssistant Professor
Areas of Specialization
Mental Causation |
Philosophy of Mind |
Theories of Causation |
Properties |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |