Abstract
The received view in physicalist philosophy of mind assumes that
causation can only take place at the physical domain and that the
physical domain is causally closed. It is often thought that this leaves
no room for mental states qua mental to have a causal influence upon
the physical domain, leading to epiphenomenalism and the problem of
mental causation. However, in recent philosophy of causation there has
been growing interest in a line of thought that can be called causal antifundamentalism:
causal notions cannot play a role in physics, because
the fundamental laws of physics are radically different from causal
laws. Causal anti-fundamentalism seems to challenge the received view
in physicalist philosophy of mind and thus raises the possibility of
there being genuine mental causation after all. This paper argues that
while causal anti-fundamentalism provides a possible route to mental
causation, we have reasons to think that it is incorrect. Does this mean
that we have to accept the received view and give up the hope of genuine
mental causation? I will suggest that the ontological interpretation of
quantum theory provides us both with a view about the nature of causality
in fundamental physics, as well as a view how genuine mental causation
can be compatible with our fundamental (quantum) physical ontology.