Mental Causation: Investigating the Mind's Powers in a Natural World

By Jens Harbecke

This work is a systematic investigation of a range of solutions offered today for the philosophical problem of mental causation. The premises constituting the problem are analyzed before a survey is developed of the most popular theories on mental causation. It is demonstrated in detail why most of these canonical solutions must be considered deficient. In a third part, the 'new compatibilist's' approach to mental causation is explored, which is characterized by assertion of a non-identity-but-non-distinctness principle. The last part aims to offer an alternative solution to the problem. On the basis of a certain set of counterfactual conditionals, which are jointly taken to provide a definition of 'causal proportionality' that improves the existing definitions, it is shown that a specific, and hitherto widely neglected, version of causal overdeterminationism must be considered the most successful solution to the problem of mental causation.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3110324490
• ISBN13: 9783110324495
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: de Gruyter
• Length: 434 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary