EpiphenomenalisM:
Dead End or Way Out?

Abstracts
Dieter Birnbacher, Düsseldorf: Causal interpretations of correlations between neural and phenomenal events
The contribution argues that causal interpretations of empirical correlations between neural and conscious events are meaningful even if not fully verifiable and that there are reasons in favour of an epiphenomalist construction of psychophysical causality. It is suggested that an account of causality can be given that makes interactionism, epiphenomenalism and Leibnizian parallelism semantically distinct interpretations of the phenomena. Though neuroscience cannot strictly prove or exclude any one of these interpretations it can be argued that methodological principles favour a causal interpretation on epiphenomenalist lines, both for reasons of  metaphysical parsimony and for reasons of coherence with established physical principles such as the conservation of energy.

 
Volker Gadenne, Linz: Can Epiphenomenalism be Defended?
As everybody knows, the three following assumptions are not logically compatible: property-dualism, mental causality, and the causal closure of the physical domain. I first argue that it is easier to give up mental causality or causal closure than (a weak form of) property dualism. (This holds at least if only low-level physical properties are considered as real.) The remaining question is whether mental causality or causal closure is to be preferred. I will try to demonstrate that mental causality is less justified than is widely assumed. As a consequence, epiphenomenalism (EP) is less absurd than most philosophers think. EP can account for the knowledge of own and other minds, and it is compatible with the fact that mental phenomena like pains are relevant for what we do. EP seems to be an unattractive theory. It has no testable consequences, but it can be defended by demonstrating that the alternative theories are even less plausible.

 
E.J. Lowe, Durham: Could Volitions be Epiphenomenal?

There are empirical neuropsychological data which suggest to some philosophers that volitions are epiphenomenal — that when we think that we are, by exercising our will, initiating a train of events which will issue in some voluntary bodily movement, in reality that movement is initiated by unconscious cerebral events occurring prior to our conscious experience of ‘willing’ and that the conscious experience is merely a causally inefficacious side-effect of those prior cerebral events. This view seems to conflict deeply with our pre-theoretical conception of ourselves as free agents. The present paper will discuss whether we need to revise our conception of ourselves in the light of such evidence or, whether, on the contrary, the evidence can and must be interpreted in a way which is consistent with our pre-theoretical self-conception.

 

Michael Pauen, Magdeburg: A World Without Mental Causation? Epistemological and Metaphysical Arguments
Standard epiphenomenalism includes the empirical claim that there are correlations between mental and certain neural properties. Unfortunately, epiphenomenalism leaves no room for the required empirical verification of this claim. Due to their causal inertness, absent mental states would make no difference whatsoever. Thus, under epiphenomenalist premises, neither behavioral data nor first person memories can be taken to provide empirical evidence for the existence of psychophysical correlations, because nothing would be different in the absence of mental properties.

The fact that third person skepticism concerning mental properties exists anyway does not help because epiphenomenalism adds first person skepticism which does not follow from the other minds problem. The explanatory gap problem does not support epiphenomenalism either. Apart from the availability of a posteriori physicalism, a variation of the above line of reasoning can be brought forward against the explanatory gap argument.

 
William S. Robinson, Iowa State: Epiphenomenalism, Naturally
Epiphenomenalism is sometimes regarded as a position of last resort – something to be believed only because alternatives are worse. The point of this paper, on the contrary, is to emphasize the highly intuitive character of the premises that lead to epiphenomenalism. Some objections are considered, and it is argued that there are independently plausible motivations for the replies. While "our words express our thoughts" can be accepted, it is not to be explicated as involving causation of speech by "thoughts". The better explication is mutually reinforcing with epiphenomenalism concerning qualitative experiences. Our knowledge of our own mentality is not well modeled by our knowledge of other things, and it is intuitively plausible that this should be so. From this point of view, epiphenomenalism is neither surprising nor distressing.

 
William Seager, Toronto: Mind, Emergence and Epiphenomenalism
There is virtual unanimity among philosophers and scientists that mind and/or consciousness are emergent phenomena. They are emergent in at least two senses of the term. They are diachronically emergent in that there was a time when the universe was devoid of any trace of mind or consciousness. They are also synchronically emergent: entities which possess mentalistic attributes are composed of parts which entirely lack such attributes.

Various explanations of the nature of emergence are possible, but I want to argue that the most plausible accounts of emergence naturally tend to make emergent features epiphenomenal. This is a general feature of emergence and not one restricted to mental attributes.

However, while the sort of epiphenomenalism I contend follows from reasonable forms of emergence is harmless so long as we focus on non-mental features of the world, it is quite threatening when applied to mental features. In fact, the natural way of understanding emergence itself threatens to make the consequent epiphenomenalism of the mind actually incoherent with that account of emergence.

It may be that a radical rethinking of the nature of emergence or even the consensus view that mind is emergent will be necessary to restore a consistent world view.  

 
Alexander Staudacher, Magdeburg: Epistemological Challenges to
Qualia-Epiphenomenalism

The conjunction of the plausible principle that the physical world is causally closed with the thesis that qualia have causal effects in that world will lead to the result that they are physical (including functional and representational) properties of the one or the other kind. But if one takes the so called explanatory gap to be a serious problem for the reduction of qualia to physical properties one may well feel reluctant to accept this result. If, on the other hand, qualia are epiphenomena, there is no need to give carte blanche to materialism.

Qualia-epiphenomenalism faces, however, inter alia the objection that empirical knowledge of epiphenomenal qualia would be impossible. But if it turned out that under the supposition of qualia-epiphenomenalism the standards for empirical knowledge of qualia can’t be met the arguments in favour of the existence of qualia would lose their force.

Because there are at least three different kinds of knowledge of qualia, namely knowledge of one’s own actual qualia, knowledge of one’s own past qualia, and knowledge of the qualia of others, the epistemic objection can take respectively different forms. This paper will focus mainly on the first version of the objection. In either of its forms the objection is based on the widely held assumption that empirical knowledge includes a causal relationship between the belief qualifying as knowledge and the object of knowledge, in such a way that the latter is among the causes of this belief. There are at least two main strategies to answer this challenge: One may argue that the standards for empirical knowledge don’t require that the object of knowledge is among the causes of the belief in question because a reliable relationship is sufficient. Or one may argue that the general model for empirical knowledge is at least misguided in the case of one’s own qualia because the belief in question seems to be related in a more direct and immediate way to its object, the quale, than in other forms of empirical knowledge (e.g. perceptual knowledge). The paper will examine these two strategies and defend the first one.

 
Sven Walter, Saarbrücken: How to Combine Epiphenomenalism and Reductionism, and Why
Two claims have figured prominently in the debate about mental causation during the last three decades. (1.) Jaegwon Kim’s claim that non-reductive physicalism implies mental property epiphenomenalism, and (2.) the claim that if mental properties were only identical to physical properties, they would be obviously causally relevant and mental property epiphenomenalism would be false. Both claims, I think, are false. (1.) has been a controversial issue between many non-reductive physicalist’s and Kim in the past. But that identity with physical properties would not save the causal relevance of mental properties, contrary to (2.), seems a much more controversial claim. (2.) is false since the physical properties that mental properties can be identified with (if they can be identified with any physical properties at all) are themselves causally irrelevant: they are higher-level physical properties that are realized by lower-level physical properties which ‘do all the causal work’, thereby rendering the former causally irrelevant. If it is true that identity does not protect the causal relevance of mental properties, a new position emerges, one that has not been occupied so far: reductive epiphenomenalism. According to reductive epiphenomenalism, mental properties are identical to causally irrelevant physical properties. I will say something about the kind of reasoning that might lead one to embracing reductive epiphenomenalism, sketch some motivation for this position, show what problems have to be solved and what theses have to be defended if one embraces it and how it compares with other prominent positions in the mental causation debate.