The metaphysics of realization, multiple realizability, and the special sciences

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 100, Issue 11, 2003, Pages 591-603

  Gillett, Carl ^a  

^a ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 33750841494     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. "Special Sciences," Synthese, XXVIII (1974): 97-115.
2. As will become clear below, I take the "received" view to be an integrated position with commitments about the nature of realization, MR, and the special sciences and their laws. The specific character of these claims will be clarified in sections I-III. Variants of the received view have been elaborated by a number of philosophers. Recent examples in the philosophy of mind are Terry Horgan's "Non-reductive Materialism and the Explanatory Autonomy of Psychology," in Steven J. Wagner and Richard Warner, eds., Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal (Notre Dame: University Press, 1993), pp. 295-320;
3. and Robert Van Gulick's "Who's in Charge Here? And Who's Doing All the Work?" in John Heil and Alfred Mele, eds., Mental Causation (New York: Oxford, 1993), pp. 233-58.
4. In the philosophy of biology, see, for instance, Harold Kincaid's "Molecular Biology and the Unity of Science," Philosophy of Science, LVII (1990): 575-93;
5. and Philip Kitcher's "1953 and All That: A Tale of Two Sciences," Philosophical Review, XCIII (1984): 335-73.
6. And, for another, rather different, defense of a variant of the received view against Shapiro's critique (note 4 below), see Alex Rosenberg's "On Multiple Realization and the Special Sciences," this JOURNAL, XCVIII, 7 (July 2001): 365-73. (The reasons why I do not follow the usual approach and include the work of Hilary Putnam, perhaps the earliest proponent of MR, as an exemplar of the received view of MR will become clear in section I).
7. See, for example, Robert Batterman's "Multiple Realizability and Universality," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, LI (2000): 115-45;
8. William Bechtel and Jennifer Mundale's "Revisiting Multiple Realization," Philosophy of Science, LXVI (1999): 175-205;
9. Lenny Clapp's "Disjunctive Properties: Multiple Realizations," this JOURNAL, XCVIII, 3 (March 2001): 111-36.
10. "Multiple Realizations," this JOURNAL, XCVII, 12 (December 2000): 635-54.
11. "What Psychological States Are Not," Philosophical Review, LXVIII (1972): 159-81. I take the latter to be a seminal expression of the received view's commitment to an extensive view of MR.
12. In my discussion I shall use the version of the causal theory from Sydney Shoemaker's "Causality and Properties," in Peter van Inwagen, ed., Time and Cause (Boston: Reidel, 1980), pp. 109-35. To cover as many participants in the debate as possible, I will use a weakened form of this account which merely claims that in the actual world all instances of a property contribute the same powers under the same conditions.
13. See Kim's Mind in a Physical World (Cambridge: MIT, 1998), p. 82
14. and p. 297 of Shoemaker's "Self, Body, and Coincidence," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume LXXIII (1999): 287-306.
15. and p. 78 of Shoemaker's "Realization and Mental Causation," in Carl Gillett and Barry Loewer, eds., Physicalism and Its Discontents (New York: Cambridge, 2001), pp. 74-98.
16. The definition is articulated and defended further in my article, "The Dimensions of Realization: A Critique of the Standard View," Analysis, LXII (2002): 316-23
17. See Putnam's "The Nature of Mental States,"
18. and "Philosophy and Our Mental Life," in his Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2 (New York: Cambridge, 1975), pp. 429-40, and pp. 291-303.
19. "The Nature of Mental States," p. 436.
20. At this point, we should mark an idea recently broached by Sara McGrath, and others, about the potential role of structural properties as defined in David Armstrong's Universals and Scientific Realism (New York: Cambridge, 1978). McGrath's suggestion is that the two individuals instantiating the property of being an eye may be an example of multiple realization even under the flat account. The individuals instantiate distinct structural properties, given their different constituents, and the idea is that these structural properties provide different realizers of the property of being an eye. This suggestion requires more extended discussion than we can give it here in order to be properly evaluated, but in response it is worth briefly making two points. First, we should acknowledge that the questions raised by the suggestion are difficult ones given various unresolved issues about structural properties. For instance, there are open questions over particular matters such as the powers that the structural properties contribute to individuals. As well as more general problems, such as whether we should posit structural properties at all in addition to acknowledging the existence of certain constituents and their properties/relations. However, we cannot resolve these questions here, so having noted them, I shall put them to one side. The second point to emphasize is that proponents of the flat view such as Putnam or Shapiro will likely reject the suggestion. For they will argue that the powers contributed by the structural property of being made of certain proteins, that is, having a certain composition, comprise powers such as melting at a certain temperature or chemically reacting with specific substances. But these powers are apparently not powers in virtue of which the individual instantiates the property of being an eye, so Putnam or Shapiro will resist the conclusion that structural properties underwrite MR on the flat view. However, it again remains to be determined whether such a response to the suggestion is successful or not.
21. For example, in Fodor's "Special Sciences."
22. See my "The Dimensions of Realization,"
23. and also "Moving beyond the Subset Model of Realization."