Physicalism and Mental Causation

This book presents a range of essays on the conceptual foundations of physicalism, mental causation and human agency. Physicalism--the thesis that everything there is in the world, including human minds, is constituted by basic physical entities--has dominated the philosophy of mind during the last few decades. Yet, there is no generally accepted definition for most of the core notions of physicalism, including fundamental notions such as 'causation, ' 'determination, ' 'realization, ' or even 'physicalism' itself. This lack of an unanimous conceptual foundation for the physicalist agenda impedes the solution of more specific problems in the philosophy of mind, for instance problems pertaining to mental causation and human agency. -- -- As of yet, a comprehensive philosophical reflection on various key concepts and how they relate to the more specific problems physicalism attempts to solve is still missing. This book presents a range of essays written by established and leading authors in the field on the conceptual foundations of physicalism and its interconnections with philosophical problems concerning mental causation and human agency.

• | Author: Sven Walter
• | Publisher: Imprint Academic (Ips)
• | Publication Date: Jun 01, 2003
• | Number of Pages: 330 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-10: 0907845460
• | ISBN-13: 9780907845461