WIPS - On Russellian Monism and Mental Causation

WIPS - On Russellian Monism and Mental Causation

Auke Montessori, Washington University in St. Louis

Abstract: Russellian Monism is the view that both the entities and relations postulated by physics and the mental are grounded in properties of the universe that are currently unknown to us. These hidden properties are called "quiddities". That is, both the physical and the mental reduces to these quiddities. The hope is that this idea can help us move beyond the old problems of dualism and physicalism. 

Recently, some philosophers have argued that Russellian Monism cannot accommodate mental causation. In this talk, I show that Russellian Monism can as long as it strictly insists on monism.