بستار فیزیکی و استدلال به سود طبیعت‌گرایی؛ بررسی انتقادی

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی

نویسنده

دکتری فلسفه دین، دانشگاه تهران، تهران، ایران.

چکیده

فیلسوفان طبیعت‌گرای برجسته‌ای همچون دیوید آرمسترانگ، دیوید پاپینیو و جیگوان کیم گفته‌اند بهترین استدلال به سود طبیعت‌گرایی مبتنی بر بستار علّی/فیزیکی جهان است. استدلال چنین است: در گام نخست، بستار فیزیکی چنین می‌گوید که هیچ امر غیرمادی که تأثیر علّی بر امور مادی داشته باشد وجود ندارد. در گام دوم، با تکیه بر تیغ اُکام یا اصل الیتیک چنین بیان می‌شود که امری که تأثیری بر جهان طبیعی نداشته باشد زائد و اضافی است و باور به آن معقول نیست (تیغ اُکام) یا آنکه اساساً امری که اثر علّی ندارد نمی‌تواند بهره‌ای از وجود داشته باشد (اصل الیتیک). این‌چنین ایشان به انکار خدا و هر گونه امر فراطبیعی دیگر می‌رسند. در این مقاله نشان می‌دهم که تعهد به بستار فیزیکی صرفاً در تعارض با علیت امور فراطبیعی همچون خدا نیست، بلکه با رکن اساسی سرشت اخلاقی و عقلانی انسان، یعنی علیت ذهنی و ارادی‌اش، نیز در تعارض است. این‌چنین به مسئله بستار فیزیکی و علیت ذهنی در دهه‌های اخیر فلسفه ذهن معاصر می‌پردازم و مهم‌ترین راهکارهای طبیعت‌باورانه مطرح‌شده برای آن را محک می‌زنم. با بررسی این راهکارها نشان می‌دهم که هیچ یک از آنها در حل مسئله علیت ذهنی و بستار فیزیکی موفق نیستند؛ و بنابراین شخص طبیعت‌گرا بر سر دوراهی دشواری قرار می‌گیرد. او مجبور است یا تعهد به بستار فیزیکی را حفظ کند و از علیت ذهنی دست بردارد یا اینکه از تعهد به بستار فیزیکی دست بردارد و از مهم‌ترین رکن استدلال خویش به سود طبیعت‌گرایی دست بشوید.

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات


عنوان مقاله [English]

A Critical Study: Physical Closure and the Argument for Naturalism

نویسنده [English]

  • Nima Narimani
PhD in Philosophy of Religion, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
چکیده [English]

Great naturalist philosophers like David Armstrong, David Papineau, Jeagwon Kim, and others have argued that the best arguments for naturalism are based on Physical Causal Closure (in brief P.C). P.C that is a premise in these arguments implies that only natural/physical causes are responsible for natural events and supernatural/non-physical causes cannot have any effective role in the natural universe. By adding some reasonable rules such as Ockham's Razor or Eleatic Principle to P.C, they have concluded that there is no non-natural cause such as God.
Many theists, in the face of the physical causal closure, may accept it and see the relationship between God and the natural world not as causal but as something entirely different; as existential or necessary relation. But this view seems to have problems. First, it is passive because it simply accepts the basic premise of the naturalistic view, and secondly, it seems unacceptable from a theistic point of view to reduce the relationship between God and the world to existential or necessary relation and to eliminate the possibility of causal influence on natural things.
In this paper, I will claim that P.C is not only against supernatural causation but is also against human agency and mental causation. To show this, first, I will present an argument against human mental causation based on P.C, and Then I will consider four different physicalist (which are committed to P.C) approaches that try to save mental causation. These approaches consist of 1) anomalous monism, 2) non-reductive physicalism, 3) over-determination, and 4) reductive physicalism.
The first solution is the idea that Davidson came up with to solve the problem of mental causation. By criticizing type identity and reductionism, he first re-examines the issue of mental causation in a new form. Examining the first (anomalous monism), I will show that this approach cannot save mental causation, and, in fact, mental causation will be rejected in this view. The second approach, although it hopes to maintain both mental causation and commitment to the physical closure, this article will show that it wouldn't succeed in doing either. Although at first glance, acceptance of over-determination may seem like a better solution, I show that this solution has fundamental problems, including the fact that in this approach mental causality becomes redundant, without which physical causes will produce the same result. But without a doubt, the main and popular solution of naturalists will be the last, that is, reductionism. Reductionism in this approach distances itself from early reductionism and seeks to establish a token identity between mental and physical states. But this moderate reductionism also faces fundamental problems such as the hard problem of consciousness, intention, and human agency, which will reject the possibility of its success. I will show, therefore, that none of these approaches can solve the problem of P.C and mental causation.
By criticizing all of them, I will show that P.C has an absurd consequence and cannot be a plausible premise in the argument for naturalism. Therefore, the best argument for naturalism will fail and cannot work against God.
 
 
 
 

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • Naturalism
  • physical closure
  • mental causation
  • free will
  • physicalism
  • theism
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