The Critical Research Of Exclusion Argument

Mental causation is a long-standing and crucial philosophical problem.It began with the controversy between Descartes and Princess Elizabeth,after which a variety of theories of mind and body appeared to solve the problem and stretched so far.In the contemporary theory of mind and body,dualism,although there are still some supporters,has been declining,and let the dominant position to physicalism.Physicalism is divided into two camps:reductionism and non-reductionism.The former argues that the mental properties can be reduced to,or identical with physical properties.The latter is the opposite.Kim stood in the position of the reductionism,absorbing Edwards'Occasionalism,and using the explanatory exclusion principle,gradually expending from the criticism of Davidson's anomalous monism to the whole criticism of non-reductive physicalism.In this step-by-step process,Kim put forward the exclusion argument.The argument pointed out that the mental properties can not causal effect on other mental properties or the physical properties.In order to solve mental causation,the mental properties can only be reduced to physical attributes,otherwise they can only go to epiphenomenalism.There are three kinds of solutions to deal with the exclusion argument:autonomy solution,inheritance solution,identity solution.The first two solutions deny the the purpose of exclusion argument,still adhere to the position of non-reductionism.The autonomy solution advocates that the mental properties do not affect the physical properties and have their own unique causality in their own fields.The inheritance solution advocates the causal force of the mental properties inherited from the physical attributes.While the identity solution is in favor of the purpose of exclusion argument,that the the causal force of mental properties is identical with the one of physical properties.However,the three solutions of the traditional road are unsuccessful.The autonomy solution can not set the causal force of the mental properties regardless of the causal effect on the physical attribute.The inheritance solution has made a mistake on the relationship between the causal factors that the inheritance needs.The identity solution did not give a model of the relationship between mind and body.Addition to the three solutions,there is a solution named " formal cause ".It takes physicalism as the basic idea;it takes the question of the explanatory exclusion principle as the breakthrough;and the core position of this solution is the mental causation as the "formal cause".The solution overcomes the defects of the current three solutions and effectively deals with exclusion argument.