How Philosophy of Mind Needs Philosophy of Chemistry
Hyle December 1, 2008 J. Earley
By the 1960s, most philosophers had adopted physicalism, the view that physical causes fully account for mental activities, but disagreement persists about what counts as physical causes. Reductive physicalists recognize only microphysical causality, while non-reductive physicalists hold that entities studied by special sciences have causal powers. The authors argue that philosophy of chemistry can help resolve issues in philosophy of mind in three ways: developing an extended mereology for chemical combination, testing whether singularities prevent reduction of chemistry to microphysics, and demonstrating downward causation in complex chemical reaction networks.