Epiphenomenalism

Classification

Position level

specific

Domains

Philosophy of Mind

Overview

Epiphenomenalism keeps the dualist's distinction between mind and body but gives up the traffic from mind to body. Brain processes cause sensations, thoughts, and feelings, which are not themselves physical, and these mental states cause nothing physical in turn. T. H. Huxley compared consciousness to the whistle of a steam locomotive, produced by the engine's working but adding nothing to it. The view's main support is that every physical event seems to have a sufficient physical cause, which leaves no work for a non-physical mind and so avoids the interaction problem of Substance Dualism. Frank Jackson defended it in 1982: having argued that physical information leaves out what experience is like, he accepted that the qualities it leaves out cause nothing physical.

The cost is the one its name suggests. If pain causes nothing physical, it is not the pain that makes you wince or say "ouch", and it is hard to see how your beliefs and reports about your own experiences could be guided by them. A similar worry, that mental properties may do no causal work, also arises for physicalists; the view described here is the classic dualist one.

Position on

• The Mind–Body Problem

Broader position

• Mind–Body Dualism

Rival positions

• Physicalism

  Question scope: The Mind–Body Problem

References

• T. H. Huxley, 'On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and its History', Fortnightly Review 16 (new series) (1874), pp. 555–580 (consciousness compared to the steam whistle of a locomotive)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Epiphenomenalism, §1 (the argument from the sufficiency of physical causes), §2.1 and §2.4 (the objections from obvious absurdity and self-stultification), and §3 (questions about epiphenomenalism also arise for materialists once mental and physical properties are distinguished)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Epiphenomenalism, introduction (mental events are caused by physical events in the brain but have no effects upon any physical events; the modern discussion traces back to a 19th-century context in which a dualistic view of mental events was assumed to be correct)
• T. H. Huxley, 'On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and its History', Fortnightly Review 16 (new series) (1874), pp. 555–580
• Frank Jackson, 'Epiphenomenal Qualia', Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982), pp. 127–136 (the knowledge argument that physical information leaves out the qualities of experience, so physicalism is false, joined to the claim that those qualities are epiphenomenal)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Epiphenomenalism, §3.4 (the knowledge argument is a strong reason to accept a dualistic view of experience and, with the traditional arguments, a source of support for epiphenomenalism)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Epiphenomenalism, introduction (the modern discussion traces back to a 19th-century context in which a dualistic view of mental events was assumed to be correct, and Huxley held the view) and §3.4 (the knowledge argument's dualism as support for epiphenomenalism)
• Frank Jackson, 'Epiphenomenal Qualia', Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982), pp. 127–136