What is downward causation in philosophy?

In philosophy, downward causation is a causal relationship from higher levels of a system to lower-level parts of that system: for example, mental events acting to cause physical events. The term was originally coined in 1974 by the philosopher and social scientist Donald T. Campbell.

Is downward causation possible?

Downward causation looks impossible as a concept, but is well established as a fact. A top- down flux of causation going from an emergent level of processes (say biological or mental) to the fundamental level of processes (say physical) that is supposed to underpin it, sounds like a paradox.

What is the problem of downward causation?

Downward causation is the controversial idea that ‘higher’ levels of organization can causally influence behaviour at ‘lower’ levels of organization.

What is top-down causation philosophy?

Top-down causation refers to the effects on components of organized systems that cannot be fully analyzed in terms of component-level behavior but instead requires reference to the higher-level system itself. A growing literature on complexity and emergence is providing an analysis of how this happens.

Does reductionism imply downward causation?

Reductionism implies that mind is an epiphenomenon, or worse, just an illusion. By contrast, downward causation is a kind of holism that denies reductionism.

What are upward and downward causation?

When the direction of causal influence extends from ‘higher’ levels of reality (say, those above the level of physics) down to ‘lower’ levels of reality, we speak of downward causation. This assumption is often complemented with the principle of the causal closure of the physical realm. …

Does reductionism imply that there is no downward causation?

Reductionism implies that mind is an epiphenomenon, or worse, just an illusion. The reductionist idea that everything is the consequence of “bottom up” physical causes is often called eliminative materialism. By contrast, downward causation is a kind of holism that denies reductionism.

What is upward causation?

The idea behind upward causation can be termed as follows: the emergence of a higher entity from a lower one is characterized by a certain causal process leading from the lower level entities to the higher level ones, so that the lower level can be seen as the cause and the higher level as the effect.

Why is reductionism bad?

In doing so, ideological reductionism manifests a cascade of errors in method and logic: reification, arbitrary agglomeration, improper quantification, confusion of statistical artefact with biological reality, spurious localization and misplaced causality.

What is a reductionist theory?

Reductionism is a theory in psychology centered on reducing complex phenomena into their most basic parts. The purpose of reductionism is to simplify psychological events and processes by looking at their smallest elements, thus “reducing” something rather complex into its most simple.

What is Supervenience Physicalism?

The possibility of such a world should be compatible with physicalism as this is a property of the actual world; but a supervenience-based definition of physicalism would imply that such a world could not exist, because it differs from the actual world with respect to a mental property, but is physically identical.

Is reductionism A good way to understand humans?

One of the major benefits of reductionism is that it allows researchers to look at things that can be incredibly varied and complex such as the human mind and behavior, and break them down into smaller parts that are easier to investigate. It allows researchers to focus on a specific problem.

Which is an example of downward causation in philosophy?

Jump to navigation Jump to search. In philosophy, downward causation is a causal relationship from higher levels of a system to lower-level parts of that system: for example, mental events acting to cause physical events, The term was originally coined in 1974 by the philosopher and social scientist Donald T. Campbell.

How is Downward Causation related to self-organization?

Downward causation is closely related to the concepts of emergence, self-organization, and supervenience. It has become very popular in the study of complex physical systems which exhibit a kind of self-organization and emergence of visible structures when the systems are far from equilibrium conditions.

What is the difference between downward causation and eliminative materialism?

The reductionist idea that everything is the consequence of “bottom up” physical causes is often called eliminative materialism . By contrast, downward causation is a kind of holism that denies reductionism.

Which is a form of cycle of causation?

This leads to a unique form of a causal interaction pattern—called a practopoietic loop (cycle) of causation. The end result is that the mechanisms responsible for mental events cause physical events only based on their joint interaction with the environment.