ABSTRACT
This pivotal chapter does two major things. First, it demonstrates the failure of philosophical functionalism, currently the most promising way to reduce mental states to brain states. Here, the argument is that there are no lawlike connections among mental states upon which functionalism fundamentally depends. There are only ceteris paribus (CP) propositions connecting mental states with non-lazy CP clauses that reduce the propositions to vacuity.
The nomothetic view of causality as lawfully relating events before to events after is described as flattening causality to a homogenized form. Against that view, the second thing the chapter does is introduce the powers view of causality. Featuring differentiated causal mechanisms, the power view provides a “thick” or differentiated understanding of causality. With it, the powers view offers a distinction utterly unavailable to the nomothetic view of causality, a distinction between the constitution and operation of a causal power. The existence or constitution of a higher-level causal power can be explained reductively, but its operation still throws something new into the mix that was not there before. Emergence thus emerges without mystery.
