of Causation and Non-Reductive Materialism
Various authors have suggested that there are several problems that develop when causation is considered vis-a-vis Non-Reductive Materialism. For example, Kim (242) describes nonreductive materialism as emerging from the fact that reductionism in the mind-body problem has been out of fashion since the 1960s and a desire to achieve true physicalist explanation without being a reductionist. It is Kim's (244) view that Searle's attempt at nonreductive materialism is not valid in part because it is impossible to establish laws for mental events because they make no causal difference. Essentially, this seems to invalidate Descartes' proposition that "I think, therefore I am," which directly claims that thinking is a precondition or even a cause of being.
In this context, causation is not fully addressed by Searle's views on non-reductive materialism. What is absent from the latter is any viable explanation of any direct, causal link between action and feeling or sense. Kim's (254) argument against nonreductive materialism is largely based on the causal closure of the physical which says that any physical event must have a physica
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