Fodor on multiple realizability and nonreductive physicalism: Why the argument does not work

José Luis Bermúdez*, Arnon Cahen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper assesses Fodor's well-known argument from multiple realizability to nonreductive physicalism. Recent work has brought out that the empirical case for cross-species multiple realizability is weak at best and so we consider whether the argument can be rebooted using a “thin” notion of intra-species multiple realizability, taking individual neural firing patterns to be the realizers of mental events. We agree that there are no prospects for reducing mental events to individual neural firing patterns. But there are more plausible candidates for the neural realizers of mental events out there, namely, global neural properties such as the average firing rates of neural populations, or the local field potential. The problem for Fodor's argument is that those global neural properties point towards reductive versions of physicalism.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)59-74
Number of pages16
JournalTheoria (Spain)
Volume35
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Universidad del Pais Vasco. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Fodor
  • Multiple realizability
  • Nonreductive physicalism
  • Reductive physicalism

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