Grounding Causal Closure or Something Near Enough
A causal argument for physicalism is widely held to pose a problem for dualism. This view has an unobvious presupposition, namely that the causal closure of the physical has a special sort of ground. The requisite sort of ground must distinguish the causal argument for physicalism from many defective causal arguments. On behalf of physicalists, I develop an account of the ground for the causal closure of the physical, thereby putting the causal argument for physicalism back in the business of causally problematizing dualism. One consequence of my account is that physicalists can pose a causal problem for dualism using a much weaker closure premise than is generally assumed.
Authors
- Bradford Saad
Institutions
- University of Oxford (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Acta Analytica
- Published
- 2024-12-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-024-00620-4
- Primary Topic
- Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- University of Texas at Austin
- European Research Council