Chancy Covariance and the Mind Body Problem

Abstract

Most agree that mental properties depend in some way on physical properties. While physicalists describe this dependence in terms of deterministic synchronic relations like identity or supervenience, some dualists prefer to think of it in terms of indeterministic dynamic relations, like causation. This chapter develops a third conception that falls somewhere between the deterministic synchronic dependence relations of the physicalist and the indeterministic diachronic dependence relations advocated by some dualists. This new conception is then used to formulate a novel approach to the mind body problem that (i) posits a necessary, metaphysically robust synchronic dependence of the mental on the physical, (ii) satisfies several of the key motivations of both non-reductive physicalism and naturalistic dualism, (iii) is consistent with both the causal efficacy of the mental and the causal closure of the physical, and (iv) is capable of reconciling determinism about the physical world with indeterminism about the mental world.