Abstract

CASTILLO, Santiago Ramón. Causation and Emergence. Crítica (Méx., D.F.) [online]. 2018, vol.50, n.150, pp.27-41.  Epub May 12, 2020. ISSN 0011-1503.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iifs.18704905e.2018.14.

I propose to understand the mind-body relationship on the basis of emergentism, although this proposal has not been without difficulties. The efforts of emergentist physicalism to find mental causal powers have resulted in either an eliminativist stance regarding the mental or in its acceptance as a supervenient phenomenon. This article sets out to present the mental as an emerging stage of the physical but without any loss of properties, necessarily passing through the biological as another stage of physical. So mental and biological properties are not restricted to an area separate from the physical world, but represent different kinds of pure physicality.

Keywords : mind-body; life; physicalism; eliminativism; monism.