Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T16:43:24.644Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Mopes, Dopes, and Tropes: A Critique of the Trope Solution to the Problem of Mental Causation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Peter Alward
Affiliation:
University of Lethbridge

Abstract

A popular strategy for resolving Kim's exclusion problem is to suggest that mental and physical property tropes are identical despite the non-identity of the mental and physical properties themselves. I argue that mental and physical tropes can be identified without losing the dispositional character of mentality only if a dual-character hypothesis regarding the intrinsic characters of tropes is endorsed. But even with this assumption, the causal efficacy of the wrong dispositions is secured.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alward, Peter 2006Are Functional Properties Causally Potent?Sorites, 17: 4854.Google Scholar
Braun, David 1995Causally Relevant Properties.” Philosophical Perspectives, 9: 447–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehring, Douglas 1996Mental Causation, Determinables, and Property Instances.” Nous, 30: 461–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehring, Douglas 1999Tropeless in Seattle: The Cure for Insomnia.” Analysis, 59: 1924.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehring, Douglas 2002The Causal Argument against Natural Class Trope Nominalism.” Philosophical Studies, 107: 179–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon 1976 “Events as Property Exemplifications.” In Action Theory. Edited by Brand, Myles and Walton, Douglas. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, pp. 159–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon 1989Mechanism, Purpose, and Explanatory Exclusion.” Philosophical Perspectives, 3: 77108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon 1993 “Postscripts on Mental Causation.” In Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, pp. 358–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon 1997Does the Problem of Mental Causation Generalize?Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 97: 281–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon 1998 Mind in a Physical World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kripke, Saul 1980 Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Robb, David 1997The Properties of Mental Causation.” The Philosophical Quarterly, 47: 178–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robb, David, and Heil, John 2003Mental Properties.” American Philosophical Quarterly, 40: 175–96.Google Scholar
Schaffer, Jonathan 2001The Individuation of Tropes.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 79: 247–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar