ABSTRACT
This chapter examines to what extent the force of Kim's challenge is affected by the increasing shift from a 'Humean' metaphysical framework towards a neo-Aristotelian 'power ontology', which has been taking place in metaphysics during the last twenty years. One of the main problems for non-reductive physicalism, according to which mental properties are distinct from and not reducible to the physical properties which underlie them, is taken to be the problem of downward causation. The events involved in the characteristic change process (CCP) are themselves necessary for the power's full manifestation, without, however, fully constituting the manifestation on their own, since they must also be due to an exercise of the underlying power. According to Kim, a 'layered' model of reality combines with two further naturalist theses to create a fundamental difficulty for the idea that mental properties and phenomena can both be distinct from physical ones and possess a genuine causal role.
