摘要
The importance of downward causation lies in its showing that functional properties,including mental properties,are real,although they can’t be reduced into physical properties. Kim rejects non-reductive physicalism,including the leading functionalism by eliminating downward causation,and thereby returns to reductionism. This paper tries to make a distinction between the two aspects of function which are functional meaning and functional structure,and claim further that functional meaning can’t be reduced into material level,but functional structure can do. Because of the subject of functional meaning to functional structure,so called downward causation is indeed a relation between the whole of function and its factors of structure,i.e.,not a relation of levels in general,but of whole-part. As a result,due to this understanding of downward causation as well as my abandoning of the principle of physical causal closure,Kim’s argument becomes invalid. Thus,this paper retains Davidson’s view of ontological monism and conceptual dualism,and puts forward causal holism as a complement with them.
The importance of downward causation lies in its showing that functional properties,including mental properties,are real,although they can't be reduced into physical properties. Kim rejects non-reductive physicalism,including the leading functionalism by eliminating downward causation,and thereby returns to reductionism. This paper tries to make a distinction between the two aspects of function which are functional meaning and functional structure,and claim further that functional meaning can't be reduced into material level,but functional structure can do. Because of the subject of functional meaning to functional structure,so called downward causation is indeed a relation between the whole of function and its factors of structure,i.e.,not a relation of levels in general,but of whole-part. As a result,due to this understanding of downward causation as well as my abandoning of the principle of physical causal closure,Kim's argument becomes invalid. Thus,this paper retains Davidson's view of ontological monism and conceptual dualism,and puts forward causal holism as a complement with them.
出处
《哲学研究》
CSSCI
北大核心
2009年第1期96-102,共7页
Philosophical Research
