Downward Causation – The Way How Mind and Matter Interact?

• Authors: Andreas Losch
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper analyzes Karl Popper’s and John Eccles’ account of mind-matter interaction and compares their use of the concept of downward causation with other more recent accounts of it, especially those of Nancey Murphy and George Ellis. The argument includes John Polkinghorne’s take on Divine action, as it provides an interesting version of downward mind/matter-interaction. It will be argued that while downward causation is a speculative concept, it nevertheless remains the best approximation to a scientific perspective on mind/matter interaction that we can obtain. As a result, Popper’s and Eccles’ account seems to be more interesting in these regards than usually assumed, and should not continue to be overlooked in the debate.

Keywords

EN

Downward Causation; Mind; Matter; Interaction; Divine Action

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Open Theology
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1

Dates

received

2015-07-12

accepted

2015-09-23

online

2015-10-27

Contributors

author

Andreas Losch

• University of Bern, Switzerland

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/opth-2015-0021