Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-422
Authors: O’Brien, Gerard
Title: How does mind matter? : Solving the content causation problem
Online publication date: 8-Nov-2016
Year of first publication: 2015
Language: english
Abstract: The primary purpose of this paper is to develop a solution to one version of the problem of mental causation. The version under examination is the content causation problem: that of explaining how the specifically representational properties of mental phenomena can be causally efficacious of behaviour. I contend that the apparent insolubility of the content causation problem is a legacy of the dyadic conception of representation, which has conditioned philosophical intuitions, but provides little guidance about the relational character of mental content. I argue that a triadic conception of representation yields a more illuminating account of mental content and, in so doing, reveals a candidate solution to the content causation problem. This solution requires the rehabilitation of an approach to mental content determination that is unpopular in contemporary philosophy. But this approach, I conclude, seems mandatory if we are to explain why mental content matters.
DDC: 100 Philosophie
100 Philosophy
Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department: FB 05 Philosophie und Philologie
Place: Mainz
ROR: https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-422
URN: urn:nbn:de:hebis:77-publ-551115
Version: Published version
Publication type: Buchbeitrag
License: In Copyright
Information on rights of use: https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Citation: Open MIND
Metzinger, Thomas
Pages or article number: Kap. 28(T)
Publisher: MIND Group
Publisher place: Frankfurt am Main
Issue date: 2015
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.15502/9783958570146
Publisher DOI: 10.15502/9783958570146
Appears in collections:JGU-Publikationen

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