Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation (Representation and Mind)

Classic.

Jaegwon Kim offers a weakened physicalist discussion of supervenience and the difficulties it presents for current alternatives to Mind-Body dualism. There is some technical language but it is kept at a minimum. Of primary importance is Kim’s remarkably lucid discussion of “supervenience.”Supervenience tries to explain how mental properties and physical kinds, not tokens, are related. Mental properties supervene on physical properties: For any property M, if anything has M at time t, then there exists a physical base (subvenient) property P such that it has P at t, and necessarily anything that has P at a time has M at that time (Kim 9). This means “every mental property has a physical base that guarantees its instantiation” (10). Thus, mental properties supervene on physical properties. The takeaway is that mental properties must always have a physical base. This is an improvement on older materialist models which said mental properties were physical properties.Supervenience presents a number of problems for physicalism, however. What happens if mental property M causes another mental property M* to be instantiated? For example, my having the state “anger” causes me to have the mental state depression/fear/whatever. This means that, if supervenience holds, M* must also have a physical property P* as its physical base. Two problems immediately arise:a. It appears that a mental property (M) is causing a physical base (P*) which then launches M*. Yet reductionists hold that all things have a physical cause. But this raises the problem:b. So what causes M*? It seems we have multiple causes, overdetermination.Kim restates the problem: if mental properties are physically irreducible and remain outside the physical domain, then, given that the physical domain is causally closed, how can they exercise causal powers (Kim 58)?ConclusionIn terms of an introductory text, albeit a rigorous one, I highly recommend this book. Admittedly, Kim doesn’t solve the problem (cf. p. 58), nor does he pretend to. He introduces the reader to the relevant terminology and explains why certain moves available to physicalists cannot work.

This book amalgamates and contextualizes much of Kim's journal publications within the last twenty years. So, readers expecting something entirely fresh may be a bit disappointed. That being said, this book, or the equivalent articles, is a must for anyone wishing to espouse functionalist second-order properties, or is hunting new ways of maintaining the strict physicalism of the mind. To Kim's credit, significant criticisms have been few and far between, and most share the attitude and thinness of Ned Block's causal drainage argument that if there is no ultimate atom, causal powers seep into minute infinity.I might add, as somewhat of a disclaimer - just so you don't blame me later - this little book has all the dormitivity of a hand full of Seconals washed down with a bottle of Beefeater. Enjoy.

Reading this book did not deepen my understanding of how it is that brains impinge on minds or minds on brains. But it greatly sharpened my grasp of what it means to speak of such impingings, and clarified what is problematic about many of the current strains of philosophical thinking on this matter. In short, I found this slim, generally quick-reading book, to be highly stimulating -- a wonderful philosophical exercise for my own mind/brain.

This book is great because after a great page you turn and get another, and another.... For the reader, an orgiastic feast of clear, insightful explanations of reductionism, the reigning non-reductive materialism, and dualism. Kim admittedly has no startlingly new theory which he hasn't expressed before, so the book is more of a textbook than a new thesis. But it simply overflows with illuminating presentations of the various aspects of the mind-body problem. And the argument that our only real choices are substance dualism and hardcore reductionism is excellent. Kim, no substance dualist, opts for reductionism. Non-reductive materialist functionalism, property dualism, anomalous monism - all these are either confusions or substance dualism in disguise. It gives us epiphenomenalist property dualists a kick in the rear. CORRECTION: I recently met Kim and asked him whether he was a reductionist, just to make sure. He said that people often misread him that way. Yes, he's saying there is a stark choice between dualism and reductionism, with no "non-reductive materialist" middle ground. But he's a dualist (actually, a property dualist, not a substance dualist).

The tedious more or less standard arguments and discussions about the mind-body problem are fatally flawed on at least three counts: (1) the conceptually highly problematic nature of the "physical world" (see, for example, Galen Strawson's, or Skrbina's latest, or George Greene's books); (2) the equally problematic nature of psychology's supposed "objects of study" (see, for ex., Colin McGinn's latest on subjective "experience", or Sigmund Koch's posthumous study/critique of psychology as a discipline); (3) the confused and confusing concept of "causality" (does one billiard ball hitting a second one "cause" the resulting movement? or does the second ball "cause" a deflection of the first? physics is acausal.). So, given these fundamental limitations, discussing how M&B are (causally?) related when we do not begin to understand the meanings of the principal terms seems downright silly to me.The reviews of the major positions (the omission of panexperientialism or panpsychism -- not even mentioned -- is notable and in my view inexcusable) are useful, even though at times they use unnecessarily specialized terminology.

Would recommend for people studying philosophy of mind.

'Mind in a Physical World' ist so etwas wie Kim's Kurzargumentation für sein Supervenience-Konstrukt. Er gibt einen Einblick in seine Arbeit zur mentalen Verursachung und handelt dabei die Themen Realisation, Emergenz, Reduktionismus und Funktionalismus ab.Eine sehr gute Erarbeitung des Problems aus Kims Sicht, recht knapp und verständlich, aber in der Argumentation stichhaltig.