Causal Exclusion Research Articles

Reduction Without Elimination: Mental Disorders as Causally Efficacious Properties

We argue that any account of mental disorders that meets the desideratum of assigning causal efficacy to mental disorders faces the so-called “causal exclusion problem”. We argue that fully reductive accounts solve this problem but run into the problem of multiple realizability. Recently advocated symptom-network approaches avoid the problem of multiple realizability, but they also run into the causal exclusion problem. Based on a critical analysis of these accounts, we will present our own account according to which mental disorders are dispositional properties that are token-identical to physical properties. More specifically, they are analyzed as dispositions to cause the specific set of symptoms. We argue that our account is not only able to account for multiple realizability without running into the causal exclusion problem, but that it also allows for the integration of very different factors into the description and explanation of mental disorders, such as neurological and neurochemical factors on the one side and social and cultural factors on the other. It thereby gives the psychiatric level of causal explanation autonomy while securing the causal efficacy of mental disorders in a causally closed physical world.

Manipulationism and causal exclusion

A new way of avoiding the causal exclusion argument in the context of manipulationism is proposed. In manipulationism, causal explanations are defined by counterfactual information accessed through manipulations. It is argued that the property of manipulability can be an emergent property of aggregate systems. Therefore, some causal explanations are non-reducible and causal exclusion is avoided. This emergentist notion of causal explanation addresses the question of how the special sciences can be based upon causal reasoning, even if fundamental physics is absent of causal relations.

Mental causation, compatibilism and counterfactuals

AbstractAccording to proponents of the causal exclusion problem, there cannot be a sufficient physical cause and a distinct mental cause of the same piece of behaviour. Increasingly, the causal exclusion problem is circumvented via this compatibilist reasoning: a sufficient physical cause of the behavioural effect necessitates the mental cause of the behavioural effect, so the effect has a sufficient physical cause and a mental cause as well. In this paper, I argue that this compatibilist reply fails to resolve the causal exclusion problem.

La venganza de Wilson. Una crítica a los enfoques seleccionistas analógicos de la evolución cultural

<p class='p1'>En este artículo se hace una crítica de los enfoques teóricos, aquí llamados por analogía o analógicos, que pretenden abstraer conceptos darwinistas del sustrato biológico para aplicarlos a dominios ontológicos (parcialmente) distintos, estrategia adoptada por versiones de la epistemología evolutiva y, sobre todo, por la teoría memética. Para ello se utiliza el argumento de la exclusión causal, tomado en préstamo de la filosofía de la mente; se hace evidente la existencia de un paralelismo entre causalidad mental y memética, y se muestra cómo cualquier posible caracterización de la segunda a partir de la primera conduce a graves problemas metafísicos y epistemológicos. En las conclusiones se esbozan, sin intención de exhaustividad, algunas ideas sobre cómo evitar posiciones reduccionistas sin adoptar una postura teórica analógica.</p>

Causal exclusion and the limits of proportionality

Causal exclusion arguments are taken to threaten the autonomy of the special sciences, and the causal efficacy of mental properties. A recent line of response to these arguments has appealed to “independently plausible” and “well grounded” theories of causation to rebut key premises. In this paper I consider two papers which proceed in this vein and show that they share a common feature: they both require causes to be proportional (in Yablo’s sense) to their effects. I argue that this feature is a bug, and one that generalises: any attempt to rescue the autonomy of the special sciences, or the efficacy of the mental, from exclusion worries had better not look to proportionality for help.

Experiment, Downward Causation, and Interventionist Levels of Explanation

ABSTRACTThis article considers interventionist arguments for downward causation and non-fundamental level causal explanation from the point of view of inferring causation from experiments. Several authors have utilised the interventionist theory of causal explanation to argue that the causal exclusion argument is moot and that higher-level as well as downward causation is real. I show that this argument can be made when levels are understood as levels of grain, leaving us with a choice between causal explanations pitched at different levels. Causal proportionality has been suggested as a principle for choosing the correct level of description for causal explanations, but this suggestion has serious problems. I offer an alternative principle, based on the idea that explanations should track actual difference-makers. I then consider claims about systems causally influencing their own parts. Such claims risk conceptual confusion for the same reason as the exclusion argument, by conflating causal and constitutive dependencies. The distinction between causation and constitution is used to give criteria for the correct use of the idea of downward causation.

How To Get Rid of Closure

Sophie Gibb has recently invented a very interesting strategy against Kim’s causal exclusion argument. This strategy adopts the powers theory of causation and an interpretation of mental causation in terms of double prevention. Gibb’s strategy results both in invalidating the principle of the causal closure of the physical domain in most of its formulations and in disarming the argument in question. In my paper, I present a general procedure for the opponents of reductive physicalism which enables them to grapple successfully with the mentioned principle. I also argue that although it could be possible to adopt Gibb’s strategy as a part of this procedure, there is a simpler one to obtain a similar outcome. This strategy is mainly based on Uwe Meixner’s causal argument against physicalism and it leads to the conclusion that if one accepts the principle of sufficient cause ( i.e. the principle of sufficient reason in its causal variant), then one should reject the principle of causal closure in the light of some empirical data. This alternative proposal is more attractive than Gibb’s solution, since it is independent of any conception of causation, does not make any distinction between causal relevance and causal efficacy, and does not refer to the notion of double prevention .

Can the macro beat the micro? Integrated information across spatiotemporal scales.

Causal interactions within complex systems such as the brain can be analyzed at multiple spatiotemporal levels. It is widely assumed that the micro level is causally complete, thus excluding causation at the macro level. However, by measuring effective information-how much a system's mechanisms constrain its past and future states-we recently showed that causal power can be stronger at macro rather than micro levels. In this work, we go beyond effective information and consider additional requirements of a proper measure of causal power from the intrinsic perspective of a system: composition (the cause-effect power of the parts), state-dependency (the cause-effect power of the system in a specific state); integration (the causal irreducibility of the whole to its parts), and exclusion (the causal borders of the system). A measure satisfying these requirements, called Φ Max, was developed in the context of integrated information theory. Here, we evaluate Φ Max systematically at micro and macro levels in space and time using simplified neuronal-like systems. We show that for systems characterized by indeterminism and/or degeneracy, Φ can indeed peak at a macro level. This happens if coarse-graining micro elements produces macro mechanisms with high irreducible causal selectivity. These results are relevant to a theoretical account of consciousness, because for integrated information theory the spatiotemporal maximum of integrated information fixes the spatiotemporal scale of consciousness. More generally, these results show that the notions of macro causal emergence and micro causal exclusion hold when causal power is assessed in full and from the intrinsic perspective of a system.

Causal Exclusion and Downward Counterfactuals

One of the main line of responses to the infamous causal exclusion problem has been based on the counterfactual account of causation. However, arguments have begun to surface to the effect that the counterfactual theory is in fact ill-equipped to solve the exclusion problem due to its commitment to downward causation. This argumentation is here critically analysed. An analysis of counterfactual dependence is presented and it is shown that if the semantics of counterfactuals is taken into account carefully enough, the counterfactual notion of causation does not need to be committed to downward causation. However, it is a further question whether this is eventually enough to solve the exclusion problem for the analysis shows how the problem itself can take various different forms.

Causal Exclusion and Causal Bayes Nets

In this paper I reconstruct and evaluate the validity of two versions of causal exclusion arguments within the theory of causal Bayes nets. I argue that supervenience relations formally behave like causal relations. If this is correct, then it turns out that both versions of the exclusion argument are valid when assuming the causal Markov condition and the causal minimality condition. I also investigate some consequences for the recent discussion of causal exclusion arguments in the light of an interventionist theory of causation such as Woodward's () and discuss a possible objection to my causal Bayes net reconstruction.

Causal Overdetermination and Modal Compatibilism

Compatibilists respond to the problem of causal exclusion for nonreductive physicalism by rejecting the exclusionist’s ban on overdetermination. By the compatibilist’s lights there are two forms of overdetermination, one that’s problematic and another that is entirely benign. Furthermore, multiple causation by “tightly related” causes requires only the benign form of overdetermination. Call this the tight relation strategy for avoiding problematic forms of overdetermination. To justify the tight relation strategy, modal compatibilists appeal to a widely accepted counterfactual test. The argument of this paper is that the counterfactual test fails to legitimize the tight relation strategy as it fails to adequately distinguish between problematic and benign overdetermination. Contrary to modal compatibilists, modal dependence does not suffice for benignity. I conclude by arguing that adequately addressing overdetermination worries requires a much heavier metaphysical burden than modal compatibilists have typically recognized.

Supervenient Emergentism and Mereological Emergentism

In recent years, emergentism has resurfaced as a possible method by which to secure autonomous mental causation from within a physicalistic framework. Critics argue, however, that emergentism fails, since emergentism entails that effects have sufficient physical causes, so they cannot also have distinct mental causes. In this paper I argue that this objection may be effective against supervenient emergentism, but it is not established that it is effective against mereological emergentism. In fact, after demonstrating that two founding emergentists, Samuel Alexander and C. Lloyd Morgan, are mereological emergentists, I show how mereological emergentism provides fresh responses to the causal exclusion problem.

What is the Exclusion Problem?

AbstractThe philosophical literature contains at least three formulations of the problem of causal exclusion. Although each of the three most common formulations targets theories according to which some effects have ‘too many determiners’, no one is reducible to either of the others. This article proposes two ‘new’ exclusion problems and suggests that exclusion is not a single problem but a family of problems unified by the situations they problematize. It is shown, further, that for three of the most popular attempts to solve one or another of the ‘old’ problems, each remains vulnerable to one of the ‘new’ exclusion problems.

Mutual manipulability and causal inbetweenness

Carl Craver's mutual manipulability criterion aims to pick out all and only those components of a mechanism that are constitutively relevant with respect to a given phenomenon. In devising his criterion, Craver has made heavy use of the notion of an ideal intervention, which is a tool for illuminating causal concepts in causal models. The problem is that typical mechanistic models contain non-causal relations in addition to causal ones, and so the question as to the applicability of ideal interventions arises. In this paper, I first show why top-down interventions in mechanistic models are likely to violate the standard conditions for ideal interventions under two familiar metaphysics of mechanistic models: those based on supervenience and realization. Drawing from recent developments in the causal exclusion literature, I then argue for the appropriateness of an extended notion of an ideal intervention. Finally, I show why adopting such an extended notion leads to the surprising consequence that an important subset of mechanistic interlevel relations come out as causal. I call the resulting metaphysical account by the name `causal inbetweenness'.

Interventionism and Causal Exclusion

A number of writers, myself included, have recently argued that an “interventionist” treatment of causation of the sort defended in Woodward, 2003 can be used to cast light on so‐called “causal exclusion” arguments. This interventionist treatment of causal exclusion has in turn been criticized by other philosophers. This paper responds to these criticisms. It describes an interventionist framework for thinking about causal relationships when supervenience relations are present. I contend that this framework helps us to see that standard arguments for causal exclusion involve mistaken assumptions about what it is appropriate to control for or hold fixed in assessing causal claims. The framework also provides a natural way of capturing the idea that properties that supervene on but that are not identical with realizing properties can be causally efficacious.

Interventionism and Supervenience: A New Problem and Provisional Solution

The causal exclusion argument suggests that mental causes are excluded in favour of the underlying physical causes that do all the causal work. Recently, a debate has emerged concerning the possibility of avoiding this conclusion by adopting Woodward's interventionist theory of causation. Both proponents and opponents of the interventionist solution crucially rely on the notion of supervenience when formulating their positions. In this article, we consider the relation between interventionism and supervenience in detail and argue that importing supervenience relations into the interventionist framework is deeply problematic. However, rather than reject interventionist solutions to exclusion wholesale, we wish to propose that the problem lies with the concept of supervenience. This would open the door for a moderate defence of the interventionist solution to the exclusion argument.

Causal Closure, Causal Exclusion, and Supervenience Physicalism

This article considers the recent defense of the supervenience approach to physicalism due to Jaegwon Kim. Kim argues that supervenience supports physical causal closure, and that causal closure supports physicalism – indeed, a kind of reductive physicalism – and thus that supervenience suffices for physicalism. After laying out Kim's argument, I ask whether its success would truly vindicate the role of supervenience in defining physicalist positions. I argue that it would not, and that insofar as Kim's defense of supervenience physicalism succeeds, it does so by showing that supervenience physicalism is not a unique, nonredundant way to be a physicalist.

Interventionism and Higher-level Causation

Several authors have recently claimed that the notorious causal exclusion problem, according to which higher-level causes are threatened with causal pre-emption by lower-level causes, can be avoided if causal relevance is understood in terms of Woodward's interventionist account of causation. They argue that if causal relevance is defined in interventionist terms, there are cases where only higher-level properties, but not the lower-level properties underlying them, qualify as causes of a certain effect. In this article, I show that the line of reasoning supposed to establish this claim does not succeed and that interventionism is not better capable of dealing with higher-level causal claims than other accounts of causation. According to Woodward, higher-level causal claims are nonetheless more adequate than lower-level ones if they describe a realization-independent dependency relationship and, hence, meet the requirement that causes should be proportional to their effects. I argue, however, that combining interventionism with proportionality considerations raises difficulties and that, therefore, Woodward's account does not vindicate higher-level causation.

Exclusion, still not tracted

Karen Bennett has recently articulated and defended a “compatibilist” solution to the causal exclusion problem. Bennett’s solution works by rejecting the exclusion principle on the grounds that even though physical realizers are distinct from the mental states or properties that they realize, they necessarily co-occur such that they fail to satisfy standard accounts of causal over-determination. This is the case, Bennett argues, because the causal background conditions for core realizers being sufficient causes of their effects are identical to the “surround” conditions with which the core realizers are metaphysically sufficient the states or properties that they realize. Here we demonstrate that the background conditions for the causal sufficiency of core realizers for their effects are not identical to the core realizer’s surrounds, nor do backgrounds necessitate such surround conditions. If compatibilist solutions to exclusion can be defended, a different argument will be needed.

Interventions on causal exclusion

Two strains of interventionist responses to the causal exclusion argument are reviewed and critically assessed. On the one hand, one can argue that manipulating supervenient mental states is an effective strategy for manipulating the subvenient physical states, and hence should count as genuine causes to the subvenient physical states. But unless the supervenient and subvenient states manifest some difference in their manipulability conditions, there is no reason to treat them as distinct, which in turn goes against the basic assumption of nonreductive physicalism. On the other hand, one can preserve the distinction between the two by introducing asymmetric manipulability conditions that the supervenience thesis entails. But this response can be used to argue that mental causes never have physical effects. However, this argumentation can also be used to show that mental causes can have mental effects.