Intervention, Fixation, and Supervenient Causation

Journal of Philosophy 117 (6):293-314 (2020)
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Abstract

A growing number of philosophers are bringing interventionism into the field of supervenient causation. Many argue that interventionist supervenient causation is exempted from the fixability condition. However, this approach looks ad hoc, inconsistent with the general interventionist requirement on fixation. Moreover, it leads to false judgments about the causal efficacy of supervenient/subvenient properties. This article aims to develop a novel interventionist account of supervenient causation that respects the fixability requirement. The treatment of intervention and fixation that I propose can accommodate some theoretical constraints on causation and deliver correct causal verdicts in classic examples. It is also worth noting that this interventionist account offers a promising defense of mental causation without postulating mental-physical overdetermination.

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Lei Zhong
Chinese University of Hong Kong

Citations of this work

Mental Causation for Standard Dualists.Bram Vaassen - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (4):978-998.
Halfway Proportionality.Bram Vaassen - 2022 - Philosophical Studies (9):1-21.
Against causal arguments in metaphysics.Bram Vaassen - 2024 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 3 (2):1-13.
Non-Naturalist Moral Causation.Audrey Powers - 2026 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 21:48–71.

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References found in this work

New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Causation.David Lewis - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (17):556-567.
Physicalism, or Something Near Enough.Jaegwon Kim - 2005 - Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mental causation.Stephen Yablo - 1992 - Philosophical Review 101 (2):245-280.

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