Fil Mente 17-18 Lezioni 10-12

Lezioni 10-11 28/2/17

Riprendiamo l’argomento di Kim T1. Chiusura causale: qualsiasi evento deve avere una causa fisica T2. Anti-epifenomenalismo: gli eventi mentali hanno potere causale T3. Niente doppie cause: se pensiamo che e2 è causato da e1 non abbiamo motivo di postulare un’altra causa e1’ (rasoio di Ockham) T4. Tesi della sopravvenienza: qualsiasi evento mentale sopravviene su un evento fisico T5. Dualismo delle proprietà Se accettiamo la teoria dell’identità (neghiamo T5), possiamo avere m1 = f1, ed evitiamo il problema Ma la teoria dell’identità è in conflitto con la tesi della realizzabilità multipla Possibile via d’uscita: token identity (con eventi alla Davidson/tropi) senza type identity (ci torneremo nel trattare l’emergentismo)

2 domande why does p, the physical event on which m supervenes, deserve to be a candidate cause of e? why is p supposed to win the causal competition with m?

why does p, the physical event on which m supervenes, deserve to be a candidate cause of e? Kim notes that m and p occur at the same time (since the former supervenes on the latter), supposedly just before the effect e, and are both connected by a law to e (Kim (1993: 207)), or, as Kim otherwise puts it, both are nomologically sufficient for e (Kim (1998a: 43), (1999: 149), (2005: 43)). In other words, given the laws of nature, either the occurrence of m, or the occurrence of p, is sufficient for the occurrence of the e. Accordingly, both m and p have an equally strong claim to be a “direct cause” of e (1993: 207). To establish that both p and m are nomologically sufficient for e, Kim provides the following argument. He takes for granted that being nomologically sufficient is a necessary condition for being a cause and thus infers that m is nomologically sufficient for e from the hypothesis that m causes e. Moreover, he relies on m’s being supervenient on p to take p as nomologically sufficient for m. Hence, by the transitivity of nomological sufficiency, he ends up with p too as nomologically sufficient for e. Here Kim appears to suggest that, if we take m to be a direct cause of e, we have equally good reasons to take p as a direct cause of e, for the following reason: both of them possess two features – temporal contiguity with, and nomological sufficiency for, e – which, qua necessary conditions of causation, give us good reasons to infer a relation of direct causation with e.

Perché l’evento fisico vince la competizione causale con l’evento mentale? “Surely a mental event could not telekinetically cause a physical event P*; if the sharp pain in your elbow causes you to cry, “Ouch!,” it could not be that your pain, as a nonphysical mental event, could somehow directly cause your vocal cords to vibrate! we must expect the causal path from the pain to “Ouch!” to coincide with the chain of neural events that culminates in the appropriate vibrations of your vocal cords, and it seems inescapable that we must locate the origin of this physical causal chain at the physical realizer of the pain, if we indeed want to give the pain a causal role.” (Kim (1998b: 231))

“When we reflect on the special case of psychophysical causation, where C, let's say, is a psychological event, C* is its physiological correlate, and E is some bodily movement associated with an action, it would be highly implausible to regard C as directly acting on the body to bring about E (e.g., my belief and desire telekinetically acting on the muscles in my arm and shoulder and making them contract, thereby causing my arm to goup); it would be more credible to think that if the belief-desire pair is to cause the movement of my arm, it must "work through" the physical causal chain starting from C*, some neural event in the brain, culminating in a muscle contraction. If this is right, we cannot regard C and C* as constituting independent explanations of E. We must think of the causal efficacy of C in bringing about E as dependent on that of its physical correlate C*” (Kim (1993: 247))

Emergentismo Cfr. «Emergent properties» SEP (argomento per presentazione/tesina) Layered model of reality: there are different ontological levels, with different entities – objects, properties, relations, events – belonging to the different levels. These levels are more or less identifiable with the domains of the special sciences, the micro- and macro-physical levels with the lowest position in the hierarchy, and then the chemical, the biological, the psychological, the sociological, with increasingly higher positions. The lower levels ground the higher ones and thus what happens at a higher level is somehow governed or constrained by, dependent on, what goes on at the lower founding level. Once we have this picture, we can dress it with downward causation: causes belonging to a certain higher level that have effects at a lower level. Emergentism can be roughly characterized as a doctrine that associates downward causation to the layered model. For example: …

a cell directs and controls certain activities performed by its constituents, thus causing something involving them. when John decides or wills to raise his arm, he seemingly causes something at a lower level, i.e., at the level of his neurons: he causes or directs the activities of his neurons, so as to achieve the desired result of the volition, i.e., raising his arm. We use “will” and “volition” to mean a conscious mental event that occurs when an agent is said to perform something at will; thus an event that is, or at least appears to be, the immediate cause of her action. Volitions are then different from wants or desires; one could want or desire to do A and yet refrain from doing A, e.g., because of some conflicting want or desire (see, e.g., Castañeda (1975)). Some people may prefer to use “decision” instead of “volition.”

Kim contro l’emergentismo But can there be downward causation? has questioned that there can be such a thing, roughly on the ground that it is incompatible with upward determination, as Kim (1999) calls it, i.e., the fact that the lower levels ground the higher ones. More specifically, he has questioned mental downward causation, i.e. causation going from the psychological (physical) level to a lower level

Incoerenza dell’emergentismo? Essenzialmente, l’argomento di Kim contro l’emergentismo è quello che abbiamo visto contro il fisicalismo non riduzionista. L’argomento in questione mira a eliminare la downward causation Questa però è una componente essenziale e irrinunciabile dell’emergentismo Invece il fisicalista non riduzionista potrebbe anche accettare l’epifenomenalismo D’altra parte, se si ammette che c’è causazione verso il basso, come può esserci una dipendenza del livello alto (mentale) da quello basso?

Possibili risposte Per rispondere a Kim l’emergentista deve (1) giustificare in qualche modo l’esistenza di una causazione dal fisico al mentale (2) mostrare che c’è una dipendenza del mentale dal fisico, nonostante causazione dal fisico al mentale Discuteremo 3 modelli Approccio basato su tropi/eventi alla Davidson (non proprio emergentismo) Approccio basato sugli eventi generici Appoccio basato su una forma forte di causazione verso il basso Mi rifaccio all’articolo «Three grades of downaward causation»

Approccio basato su tropi Tropes as Causal Relata Tropi = proprietà intese come particolari Classi di tropi che si somigliano perfettamente  proprietà in quanto universali Classe dei dolori intesi come tropi Classe delle fibre C attive intese come tropi Classe delle fibre M attive intese come tropi

Lezione 12 28/2/17

instantiation (or exemplification) in a tropist ontology properties, in the primary sense of the term, are tropes, i.e., particulars that characterize objects without being shared by them in the manner in which universals are. Talk of properties and instantiation (or exemplification) thus becomes ambiguous, for we must distinguish between properties qua characterizers of objects, i.e. tropes, and properties qua unifiers of objects, i.e. qua entities that account for the fact that different objects can be grouped together under general terms (universals do both jobs at once). The unifiers can be taken to be classes of resembling tropes. Thus, these classes are also (though in a secondary sense) properties. Therefore, in a secondary sense of instantiation, an object instantiates such a class in the sense that it instantiates, in the primary sense (i.e., the one in which tropes characterize objects), a trope belonging to the class in question.

trope resemblance admits of degrees It is important to note that trope resemblance admits of degrees: there are perfectly resembling tropes, e.g., all those that are a certain definite shade of red, and tropes that resemble each other to a lesser extent, e.g., all those that are some shade or another of red.

Tropismo e realizzabilità multipla the distinction between mental and physical properties required by the layered picture of reality is best seen as regarding properties qua unifiers, and thus Multiple Realizability, Distinctness [dualismo delle proprietà] and Supervenience should be read as talking about properties in this sense. The idea is that a physical property P and a mental property M that supervenes on P are as follows: P is a proper subclass of M, which in turn contains other proper subclasses, e.g, P’. The tropes in each such subclass perfectly resemble each other. Those in P are all, say, C-fibers firings, which occur in human beings who are in pain. Those in P’ are all, let us imagine, E-fibers firings, which occur in some extra- terrestrial creatures when it seems appropriate to say that they are in pain. And so on.

All the members of M partially resemble each other to the extent that they are pains. Pain is thus multiply realized in the sense that it is a class of less than perfectly resembling tropes that comprises these different subclasses of perfectly resembling tropes. Vedi Robb, David (1997). “The Properties of Mental Causation”. Philosophical Quarterly, 47: 178–194

Tropismo e identità delle occorrenze Distinctness [dualismo delle proprietà] no longer forces us to reject Token Identity. Consider again m, i.e., John’s volition to raise his hand, and the physical event p on which it supervenes. Event m is mental in that it belongs to a mental class M of partially resembling tropes. Event p is physical in that it belongs to a distinct physical class P of perfectly resembling tropes, say, neuron activations of the kind that occur in a human brain when we say that a certain subject has a volition to raise one’s hand. And we can take m and p to be identical, provided that the event that they are is both a member of M and of P.

Esempio. M = classe dei tropi dolore Esempio. M = classe dei tropi dolore. P1 = sottoclasse dei tropi fibre C-attive (si somigliano perfettamente). P2 = sottoclasse dei tropi fibre M attive (si somigliano perfettamente) Ciascun membro di M è un membro di P1 o P2 = ogni tropo mentale è fisico M è una classe di somiglianza solo parziale perché i membri di P1 e quelli di P2 non si somigliano perfettamente. M P1 P2

Ricapitolando Causazione mentale perché i tropi mentali sono (identici a) tropi fisici Realizzabilità multipla perché la classe dei tropi mentali ha diverse sotto-classi di tropi fisici Dualismo delle proprietà intese come classi di tropi: una classe di tropi mentali non si identifica con una particolare classe di tropi fisici (semmai con una unione di varie sottoclassi di tropi fisici) Diversi livelli: classi di tropi mentali e classi di tropi fisici Emergentismo? In un certo senso. Ma dobbiamo ingoiare un rospo …

Unitarianism, Anti-Unitarianism, and Relativistic Reductive Physicalism Regarding the issue of whether the same mental property can be exemplified by creatures belonging to different species, we can distinguish two views: Unitarianism says that it can and Anti-Unitarianism claims the opposite. Unitarianism should be preferred as the simplest option, seemingly supported by common sense. Anti-Unitarianism is however chosen by Relativistic Reductive Physicalism (KIM ?), as we may call it, which reacts to Multiple Realizability not by rejecting Type Identity, but rather by proposing this: where Non-reductive Physicalism claims that there is a single mental property, say believing that 2+2=4, realized by different physical properties, say, P1 in humans and P2 in Martians, there are in fact many different, although somehow similar, properties: for example, believing that 2+2=4 for humans, which is identical to P1, and believing that 2+2=4 for Martians, which is identical to P2.