Mental Causation

Abstract

I have argued that conceptual pluralism challenges common formulations of the mind-body problem by insisting that the scope of reductive explanations is an open empirical question. This chapter discusses the objection that conceptual pluralism fails to provide a satisfying account of one important aspect of the mind-body problem: mental causation. First, I reject mental causation arguments that are based on the idea that the “real causal powers” and the “real causal work” are found only on the microphysical level. If we do not already presuppose a strong metaphysical notion of the priority of the physical, there to no reason to restrict causality to a fundamental physical level. However, I acknowledge that systematic overdetermination requires explanation if there are several metaphysically distinct causes for the same event. At the same time, I stress that conceptual pluralism rejects the idea that mental and physical causes are metaphysically distinct in a substantive sense. Conceptual pluralism therefore interprets overdetermination as a harmless form of linguistic overdetermination