Non‐Reductive Materialism

Abstract

Abstract The expression ‘non-reductive materialism’ refers to a variety of positions whose roots lie in attempts to solve the mind–body problem. Proponents of non-reductive materialism hold that the mental is ontologically part of the material world; yet mental properties are causally efficacious without being reducible to physical properties. After setting out a minimal schema for non-reductive materialism (NRM) as an ontological position, this article canvasses some classical arguments in favour of NRM. Then it discusses the major challenge facing any construal of NRM: the problem of mental causation, pressed by Jaegwon Kim. Finally, it offers a new solution to the problem of mental causation.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 77 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.