Counterfactuals, regularity and the autonomy approach

Abstract

Many philosophers insist that the most plausible solution to the exclusion problem is to adopt the so-called ‘autonomy approach’, which denies either upward or downward causation between mental and physical properties. But the question of whether the autonomy approach is compatible with respectable theories of causation has seldom been discussed in the literature. This paper considers two influential theories of causation, the counterfactual account and the regularity account. I argue that neither the counterfactual theory nor the regularity theory can support the autonomy approach – while the counterfactual approach fails to block downward causation, the regularity approach is unable to refute upward causation.

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