


[claim that mental causation requires physicalism]

12 ideas
The soul cannot be incorporeal, because then it could neither act nor be acted upon [Epicurus]
A body is required for anything to have causal relations [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero]
How can that which is unthinking be a cause of thought? [Berkeley]
Cause unites our picture of the universe; without it, mental and physical will separate [Davidson]
Davidson sees identity as between events, not states, since they are related in causation [Davidson, by Lowe]
Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level [Kim]
Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling [Kim]
It is absurd to think that physical effects are caused twice, so conscious causes must be physical [Papineau]
Overdetermination occurs if two events cause an effect, when each would have caused it alone [Crane]
If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil]
The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil]
The main argument for physicalism is its simple account of causation [Sturgeon]