Philosophy of mind in the twentieth and twenty first centuries the history of the philosophy of mind volume 6 ( PDFDrive ) (1) 57

P hilip J W alsh and J eff Y oshimi Husserl describes a phenomenological form of supervenience between sensory states and physical states.23 He says that we experience the physical states of organisms as determining their sensory states If two experienced agents or “animate organisms” are experienced as physically indiscernible, they will also be experienced as mentally indiscernible:24 the sensibility presents itself [to consciousness] in such a way that we can say that if the animate organism is the same  .  with regard to its materiality and its material states, then . .  the stratum of sensation would also have to be the same (Husserl 1980, 120) So, sensations are experienced as supervening on physical processes If two agents are experienced as having the same physical properties, they will also be experienced as having the same “stratum of sensation” (i.e sensory properties) Other phenomenological features are experienced as supervening on physical states of the brain, including “phantasy” (which includes imagination and memory), feelings, instincts, and “the proper character, the rhythm, of higher consciousness” (Husserl 1989, 308–309) Thus far we have a picture of mind-body relations that is similar to a standard contemporary physicalist conception According to this picture, mental properties are related to physical properties via synchronic “vertical” supervenience relations (think of how a pattern of atoms at a time determines a unique molecular pattern at that same time) See Figure 1.1 Physical processes are related by dynamic or diachronic “horizontal” causal processes, where one state of (say) the brain gives rise to successive states, relative to an environment and a set of physical laws The lower-level dynamics then induce higher level dynamics via the supervenience relations (Yoshimi 2012) For example, when a brain changes from state P to P* at the neural level, this gives rise to parallel changes from M to M* at the psychological level, in virtue of the supervenience relation On the basis of this overall picture of mental-physical relations, many contemporary philosophers deny that true mental causation is possible (cf Chapter  M M* supervenes supervenes P causes P* Figure 1.1 A standard account of mental-physical relations Physical processes like P to P* unfold dynamically and are shown as proceeding horizontally Physical to mental supervenience relations occur synchronically and are shown as vertical lines.25 Adapted from Kim (2003) 38