ABSTRACT
Philosophy.—Traditional epiphenomenalism states that mental events have no causal efficacy and are mere epiphenomena relative to the physical events that cause them (→CAUSALITY AND MENTAL CAUSATION). Another, now highly debated version gives mental events causal power, but only to the extent that they are identical to or exemplify physical properties (→IDENTITY, PHYSICALISM), not on the basis of the fact that they exemplify mental properties. (For example: If my pain makes me scream, it is not by virtue of the fact that it is my pain, but because it is a certain neural state. Compare: If Castafiore’s voice breaks the windowpanes in the living room, it is not by virtue of the fact that she is singing The Jewel Song, but by virtue of the high pitch of the sound she is emitting.) The objection to the effect that the doctrine is just epiphenomenalism in this second sense could be directed at any “occasional identity” theory of mental and physical events (as tokens, and not as types or properties), such as Donald Davidson’s anomalous monism or some versions of functionalism (→DUALISM/MONISM, FUNCTIONALISM, TYPE/TOKEN).
