November 8th to 11th, 2004

Pablo Gabriel Ferreira
pablorjferreira@hotmail.com
UFRJ - Brazil

CAUSALITY: PRAGMATISM AND ONTOLOGY

ABSTRACT
In the context of philophy of mind, reductivism is not an unpopular thesis among philosophers. Much of them believe that the causal powers of mental properties are reducible to the underlying physical properties. However, the thesis according to which the mental properties have an ineliminable causal relevance is widely endorsed as well. Tyler Burge and Lynne Baker are playing in this team. They try to show, by a pragmatic argument, that psychological properties have an irreducible causal role. According to them, the contention on mental causation must not begin by discussing ontological questions, but considering the scientifical practices. This means that if psychology works with intentional concepts, and is relatively successful in this task, then it is enough to ascribe causal relevance to mental properties. Nonetheless, as Kim points out, this argument is still a metaphysical one, and it does not solve the problem of mental causation. According to Kim, the question is not whether mental properties are causally efficacious, the question is how they are. Therefore, this paper aims to show that the pragmatic argument sustained by Burge and Baker is not incompatible with the ontological approach proposed by Kim. We will try to show that the most the pragmatic argument can do is picking out a causal relation.

KEYWORDS : Philosophy of Mind, Causality, Pragmatism.

Center for Pragmatism Studies
Philosophy Graduate Program
Departament of Philosophy
Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo - Brazil