Fundamental and non-fundamental things are at least as deeply metaphysically different from each other as physical and non-physical things.
Fundamental things can cause non-fundamental things and non-fundamental things can cause fundamental things. (E.g., particles can cause a heap, and lab equipment can cause a particle emission.)
Therefore, being at least as deeply metaphysically different as physical and non-physical things are cannot be sufficient for making causal relationships impossible.
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Against anti-interactionist intuitions
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8 comments:
Does “particle emission“ count as something fundamental and how do we define that term?
Alex
What is the support for premise 1?
Well, it seems to me that the basic ontology of a fundamental thing is different from the basic ontology of a non-fundamental thing, while the difference between a physical and a non-physical thing is just a difference predicated on what properties a thing has, akin to the difference between a living and a non-living thing, or between a colorful and a colorless thing.
Dr. Pruss, I have a question that is off-topic. If the PSR were false, and there could be contingent facts without a sufficient explanation, then wouldn't the fact that the PSR is false be a sufficient explanation of the unexplained contingent facts? I'm not sure if this is valid but it would be cool to draw out the implications of this if it is.
Alex
Well, if you put it that way, I suppose you could say that fundamental and non-fundamental things are at least as deeply metaphysically different from each other as physical and non-physical things.
But it seems to me the anti-interactionist intuitions are based on the idea that a non-physical thing lacks the properties needed for interaction.
The ontology of a thing doesn't seem to be too relevant here.
That presupposes a cartesian view of tge material, so quite the contrary, it pretty much boils down exclusively to tge ontology of a thing
Dominik
I don't see why it presupposes a cartesian view of the material.
The point is that it seems to me the anti-interactionist intuitions is largely based on the view that "physical" is virtually a synonym for "capable of interacting".
I am not claiming that this is the correct view, but an that view, the ontology of a thing does not seem to matter. Even if a brick somehow popped into existence from nothing, it would still hurt if it fell on your head.
I also find the point in this post plausible. It relates to the point argued in the following paper I read a while ago, every popular objection to substance dualism has a parallel objection to composition. Although this is used to defend mereological nihilism here.
https://philpapers.org/rec/BREMNA-3
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