ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the prospects for downward causation in metaphysics and the philosophy of science. It is subdivided into three parts. The first one concerns downward causation and the metaphysics of causation. The second one delves into scientific examples of downward causation. The third and final part is about downward causation, mind and agency. Beside Kim's exclusion argument, philosophers of mind need to consider explanatory practices in the neurosciences. In addition to Kim's arguments, there are also some empirical concerns about the irreducibility of downward causation, due to the idea that downward causation can be replaced by special, lower-level phenomena. Downward causation is commonly linked to emergence: an entity acting as a downward cause is an emergent entity, and vice versa. Strong emergence is taken to be the in-principle failure to predict and explain everything in lower-level terms.
