Physical Realization without Preemption
Sydney Shoemaker · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2013
Abstract The paper discusses how mental states can be physically realized without their causal efficacy being preempted by their physical realizers—either property realizers, which are physical property instances, or microphysical realizers, which are microphysical state of affairs. On the ‘subset account’ of property realization P is realized by Q when the forward-looking causal features of P are a subset of the forward-looking causal features of Q. An instance of a mental property is a part of the instance of the physical property that realizes it, and the latter causes what it does in virtue of having the mental property instance as a part. Corresponding to every type of microphysical states of affairs there is an MSE property that something has in virtue of embedding a state of affairs of that type, and these are property realizers of other properties.