Fodor on multiple realizability and nonreductive physicalism: Why the argument does not work Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • This paper assesses Fodors well-known argument from multiple realizability to nonreductive physicalism. Recent work has brought out that the empirical case for cross-species multiple realizability is weak at best and so we consider whether the argument can be rebooted using a thin notion of intra-species multiple realizability, taking individual neural firing patterns to be the realizers of mental events. We agree that there are no prospects for reducing mental events to individual neural firing patterns. But there are more plausible candidates for the neural realizers of mental events out there, namely, global neural properties such as the average firing rates of neural populations, or the local field potential. The problem for Fodors argument is that those global neural properties point towards reductive versions of physicalism.

published proceedings

  • THEORIA-REVISTA DE TEORIA HISTORIA Y FUNDAMENTOS DE LA CIENCIA
  • THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science

author list (cited authors)

  • Bermudez, J. L., & Cahen, A.

citation count

  • 1

complete list of authors

  • Bermúdez, José Luis||Cahen, Arnon

publication date

  • February 2020