Mental Causation and Shoemaker-Realization

Sydney Shoemaker has proposed a new definition of `realization’ and used it to try to explain how mental events can be causes within the framework of a non-reductive physicalism. This paper argues that it is not actually his notion of realization that is doing the work in his account of mental causation, but rather the assumption that certain physical properties entail mental properties that do not entail them. It also points out how his account relies on certain other controversial assumptions, including analytical filler-functionalism for mental properties, and the assumption that causes must be proportional to their effects. It concludes by pointing out that Shoemaker has provided no explanation of why, on his view, certain physical properties entail mental properties.