Greetings all,
This coming Monday, 1.00-2.30 in the philosophy common room, Peter
Menzies (Macquarie) will talk to us about "When does one causal
explanation exclude another?"
Some scientists and philosophers assert that the causal explanations
of a higher-level science are often displaced by those of a lower-
level science. Cognitive scientists and neuroscientists express this
view when they claim that folk psychological explanations of behaviour
in terms of intentional mental states will be supplanted by causal
explanations in terms of subpersonal cognitive or neural states. The
view is not uncommon among philosophers too. Jaegwon Kim, for example,
expresses this view in his famous Exclusion Argument for the
conclusion that non-reductive physicalism is committed to
epiphenomenalism. In this paper I examine the general conditions under
which one causal explanation displaces or excludes another. I state
these conditions precisely in terms of a simple theory of causal
explanation and describe some of their surprising consequences.
See you all there....
__________________________________________________________
Dr. Kristie Miller
University of Sydney Research Fellow
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and
The Centre for Time
The University of Sydney
Sydney Australia
Room 411, A 18
[email protected]
[email protected]
Ph: 02 93569663
http://homepage.mac.com/centre.for.time/KristieMiller/Kristie/Home_Page.html
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