On Exclusion Argument And Autonomy Solutions

Questions about mind-body causation are important in philosophy of mind, which stems from the Descartes’s mind-body problem. During the past two decades or so, nonreductive physicalists claim that mental properties are not reducible to, and are not identical with, physical properties, while reductive physicalists insist that mental properties are reducible to physical properties. Kim is one of the reductive physicalists, and he comes up with exclusion argument, in order to refute nonreductive physicalism. Kim emphasizes that mental properties are excluded by their respective supervenient physical properties. Mental properties cannot cause both physical properties and other mental properties.Kim presents us that higher-level mental properties compete with lower-level physical realizers. But some philosophers insist that there is something wrong in the exclusion argument and raise three solutions:identity solutions, inheritance solutions and autonomy solutions. The supporters of identity solutions point that any mental property just is its physical realizer. If mental property equals physical property, there’s no question of one’s excluding the other, because mental property and physical property are just the same one. One worry about this way is that mental property contains dispositional character, while physical property doesn’t. The idea of inheritance solutions is that the causal powers of mental properties "inherit" the ones of their realizers. The relationship between mental properties and physical properties is not one of rivalry, but one of cooperation. If the ones inherit the others, the former are parts of the latter and their relationships are the wholes and the parts. The wholes never exclude the parts. There is no threat of overdetermination, since the mental work through the physical. But some opponents doubt how to explain the inheritance successfully is a difficult work.In my opinion, autonomy solutions are the most efficient ways to answer the exclusion argument. There are a variety of forms:such as, psychological explanations approach, level approach, action approach. Mental properties enjoy causal relevance in their own right and are not threatened by exclusion from physical properties. Psychological explanations, as special sciences, are different from lower-level physical sciences, enjoying their own distinctive laws. If psychology is eliminated, then biology, chemistry, geography and some other higher level sciences will also be excluded. The consequence is so disastrous, that we cannot eliminate psychology:this is psychological explanations way. Some philosophers endorse that mental properties can cause other mental properties in the mental level, and mental properties and physical properties do not causally compete because they are parts of separate causal lines to different properties of the effect. Actions can be distinguished from bodily movements, because actions are constituted by events with a certain causal history. Mental properties, as the action’s antecedents, rationalize the action. That is to say, mental causation cannot be excluded, because mental properties cause actions.Autonomy solutions successfully settle exclusion argument, because it presents us with natural laws in mind-body field, which Kim doesn’t acknowledge. Mental causation practice appealing its own distinctive law, not excluded by physical propert-ies, so autonomy solutions dissolve the exclusion problem.