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Freedom from the Inside Out

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2010

Carl Hoefer
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Extract

Since the death of strong reductionism, philosophers of science have expanded the horizons of their understandings of the physical, mental, and social worlds, and the complex relations among them. To give one interesting example, John Dupre has endorsed a notion of downward causation: ‘higher-level’ events causing events at a ‘lower’ ontological level. For example, my intention to type the letter ‘t’ causes the particular motions experienced by all the atoms in my left forefinger as I type it. The proper explanation of the motions of an atom at the tip of my forefinger primarily involves my intentions, rather than (for example) the immediately preceding motions of other nearby atoms, or any other such particle–level events.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 50 , March 2002 , pp. 201 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2002

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References

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