Feel free to write your final paper on any material that we covered this semester.  In case you’re having a difficult time coming up with a topic, here are some possibilities.  If you want to write on something that doesn’t fall under any of these areas, meet with me to talk about your paper before you start writing it.
 

--How should epiphenomenalism be defined?  What is the best response to the “in virtue of” objection, as raised against Davidson’s AM?  What must be the case, in general, for X-causation to occur?  What relation must mental properties bear to physical effects (e.g., human action) in order to avoid the charge of epiphenomenalism?  Are mental properties related to action as such?

    Relevant readings:  Davidson’s “Mental Events” and “Psychology as Philosophy”; Davidson, Kim, McLaughlin, and Sosa
    (MC, pp. 3-50); LePore and Loewer’s “Mind Matters”; Fodor’s “Making Mind Matter More”
 

--How should the causal relata (e.g., events, properties, tropes, etc.) or the causal relation be understood, so as to best account for mental causation (more generally:  X-causation)?

    Relevant readings:  Davidson’s “Mental Events”, “Psychology as Philosophy”, and “Thinking Causes”; Kim’s “Multiple
    Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction”; LePore and Loewer’s “Mind Matters”; Fodor’s “Making Mind Matter
    More”; Lewis’s “An Argument for the Identity Theory”; Yablo’s “Mental Causation”; Robb’s “The Properties of Mental
    Causation”
 

--Which premises and/or inferences of exclusion arguments (e.g., our “Master Exclusion Argument”) should be rejected in order to save mental causation?  Defend your suggested solution.
 

--Examine Kim’s arguments against non-reductive materialism.  Does Microphysical Supervenience (MS), Microphysical Closure (MC), and property non-reduction (NR) exclude the possibility of macro-causation?

    Relevant readings:  Kim (MC, pp. 189-210)
 

--Should the metaphysical, causal exclusion argument for epiphenomenalism even be taken seriously?  Should we accept some kind of causal exclusion principle?

    Relevant readings:
    Against:  Baker (MC, pp. 75-95--also see the Burge reading in MC); Dennett (e.g., on “real patterns”); Van Gulick (MC,
    pp. 233-256)
    For:  Kim’s “Mechanism, Purpose, and Explanatory Exclusion”; Yablo’s “Mental Causation”
 

--Does the multiple realizability of the mental show that psychology is not autonomous?

    Relevant readings:  Kim’s “Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction”; Fodor’s “Special Sciences:  Still
    Autonomous After All These Years”
 

--Is there a significant distinction between “real”, “genuine”, or “intrinsic” intentional explanations and “as if” or “derived” intentional explanations?

    Relevant readings:  Dennett (throughout The Intentional Stance); Dretske (chapters 3 and 4 of Explaining Behavior)
 

--Are reasons explanations in psychology similar in kind to reasons explanations in evolutionary biology?

    Relevant readings:  Dennett (essays 7 and 8); Dretske (chapters 3 and 4 of Explaining Behavior)
 

--Should we accept Dretske’s distinction between behavior and movement (output)?  Does this distinction greatly aid in solving the problem of mental causation?

    Relevant readings:  Dretske (chapters 1 and 2 of Explaining Behavior)
 

--To the extent that mental content is “wide”, are content properties causally inefficacious?  Should we accept Stich’s principle of autonomy or Fodor’s methodological solipsism?

    Relevant readings:
    For:  Fodor’s “Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy”; Stich’s “Autonomous Psychology and the
    Belief-Desire Thesis”; Jackson and Pettit (MC, pp. 259-282)
    Against:  Burge’s “Individualism and the Mental”; Van Gulick’s “Metaphysical Arguments for Internalism and Why They
    Don’t Work”