Mental Causation

Two thousand years ago, Lucretius said that everything is atoms in the void; that it is physics all the way down. Contemporary physicalism agrees, but if that's so how can we-how can our thoughts, emotions, our values-make anything happen in the physical world? This conundrum is called the mental causation problem, and it is closely related to the free will problem, connecting to issues regarding consciousness and intentionality. Anthony Dardis lays out the conceptual history of the mental causation problem in clear and accessible terms and offers a way to fit mental causation into our physical world. His book begins with how the problem appears in the history of philosophy, specifically in the work of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and T. H. Huxley, and then develops a framework for building a theory of causation, laws of nature, and the causal relevance of properties. Dardis explains how macro, or higher level, properties can be causally relevant in the same way microphysical properties are causally relevant-by their relationship with the laws of nature. Whether it is the smell of an orange, the experience of a painting, or the desire for morality, mental properties can make things happen, alongside the physical motor of the world.