A Concausal Approach to the Mind-Body Problem

Abstract

This paper tests Leonardo Polo’s concausality against the challenges of epiphenomenalism, overdetermination, and reductionism that the contemporary mind-body problem presents. An analysis of Jaegwon Kim’s criticism of John Searle’s Biological Naturalism exemplifies the aporias of the mind-body relation generated by dualism and physicalism. In contrast with these ontologies, Aristotle’s notion of matter as potentiality requires a plurality of causal senses and is a viable alternative to both dualism and monism. Polo’s reprisal of Aristotle’s substance as concausality provides a revision of our senses of causation and an ontological framework that makes coherent our experience of consciousness and our understanding of physical reality.