Physicalism, Teleology and the Miraculous Coincidence Problem

PHYSICALISM, TELEOLOGY AND THE MIRACULOUSCOINCIDENCE PROBLEM

B J K

I

In recent philosophy of mind and science, much discussion has been de-voted to seeking an understanding of how the properties, predicates and/orlaws of non-basic sciences and of non-scientific discourse should be relatedto those of basic science, i.e., physical science. Reacting to what they see asthe threats posed by Cartesian dualism on the one hand and by a strongreductionist programme on the other, philosophers have sought to defend amiddle way, in which ontological monism – in particular, physical monism –is reconciled with some kind of explanatory pluralism. This strategy hasusually been coupled with a commitment to the thesis that all non-basicproperties are supervenient on physical properties, indicating a metaphysicalcommitment to the idea that physical stuff is all that there fundamentally is.Within this broad camp, which is often labelled anti-reductionist, many subtlydifferent accounts may be identified, depending on the conception ofsupervenience that is assumed, on the kinds of entities that are accepted intothe ontology, on the precise meaning of ‘reduction’ specified and on thecriteria that are adopted for being scientific. What is common to most ofthese accounts is that they create nearly as many philosophical problems asthey seek to solve, most of which revolve around the problem of how andwhy non-basic properties can or should be seen as depending on but never-theless not identical with basic properties. In the face of these problems, twofurther main positions have come to seem attractive: eliminativism, whichdenies the validity of discourses that are not reducible to physics, and a kind

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of pragmatic (or anti-physicalist) pluralism, which denies the idea of any basicontological level or science.1

In this paper, I shall be discussing one of the best known accounts withinthe anti-reductionist physicalist camp, that presented by Jerry Fodor, andvarious problems for it. The main focus will be on a problem posed for thataccount by David Papineau and Graham Macdonald (and others).2 Papi-neau and Macdonald argue that this problem requires an injection of tele-ology, of some thoroughly naturalistic variety, into Fodor’s picture, in orderto make it other than wholly implausible. My main aim is to show that theproblem Papineau and Macdonald present is much less clearly a problemfor Fodor than they assume, and that in any case the teleological solutionwould be no solution to it whatsoever.

A subsidiary aim of the paper is to examine the relationship betweenPapineau’s and Macdonald’s problem with Fodor’s picture and a super-ficially similar problem with the latter presented by Adrian Cussins.3 I shallshow that these problems are distinct from each other, and that Cussins’problem, if accepted as such, is one which, in contrast with Papineau’s andMacdonald’s, stands in need of solution. Cussins’ problem does not, how-ever, constitute a convincing objection to Fodor’s anti-reductionist picture,any more than Papineau’s and Macdonald’s. Nevertheless the cogency ofFodor’s proposal, in the light of his ideas about the relationship betweennon-basic and basic sciences, is open to a further criticism, a criticism whichpoints towards a need for physicalists to be more engaged in establishing arelation between physical properties and special-science properties, especi-ally psychology, in something approaching the way Cussins envisages.

II

Fodor’s conception of the relationship between special sciences such aspsychology and geology on the one hand and the fundamental science of

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1 On eliminativism, see P. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness (MIT Press, ); onpluralism, see T. Crane and H. Mellor, ‘There is No Question of Physicalism’, Mind, (), pp. –, and J. Dupré, The Disorder of Things (Harvard UP, ).

2 See D. Papineau, ‘Irreducibility and Teleology’ (hereafter I&T), in D. Charles and K.Lennon (eds), Reduction, Explanation, and Realism (Oxford UP, ), pp. –, and PhilosophicalNaturalism (PN ) (Oxford: Blackwell, ); G. Macdonald, ‘Reduction and Evolutionary Bio-logy’, in Charles and Lennon, pp. –. Similar though not necessarily identical problemsare raised by P. Smith, ‘Modest Reductions and the Unity of Science’, in Charles and Lennon,pp. –; and by J. Searle, Minds, Brains and Science (Cambridge UP, ).

3 A. Cussins, ‘The Connectionist Construction of Concepts’ (hereafter CCC), in M. Boden(ed.), The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence (Oxford UP, ), pp. –, and ‘The Limitationsof Pluralism’, in Charles and Lennon, pp. –.

PHYSICALISM, TELEOLOGY AND MIRACULOUS COINCIDENCE

physics on the other can be presented in a diagram, due to Papineau (I&Tp. ),4 as follows:

S

P

21

P P1 2 n

S

... ... nQ2

QQ1

S1 → S2 is a special-science law; S1 and S2 are special-science categories.These are, as it is put, variably realized at the physical level. Thus if we takepsychology as the special science in question and S1 to be a mental state pro-perty, then S1 may be instantiated in different species, in different people, inthe same person at different times, and possibly also in the same personacross different possible worlds, by different physical properties, the dis-junction of which we may represent as Pi. The same applies for S2, with Q i

being the disjunctive realizing physical category. In addition, each Pi isnomologically related to one of the Q is. Importantly, these disjunctive cat-egories do not do any distinctive explanatory work at the level of physics;hence the special-science law and categories are said to stand in a non-reductive relationship to the physical ones.

One thing which the diagram does not bring out explicitly but which is acommonly assumed component of the Fodor picture is that the causalpowers of S1 and S2 are exhausted by those of the realizing Pis and Q is re-spectively. Given that different higher-level properties have different causalpowers, this implies some version of supervenience of the special propertieson the lower-level ones: any change in a causally effective higher-level pro-perty will imply a change in the lower-level physical properties. If we do notassume this, then we may seem to allow causal overdetermination, and inaddition the support for physicalism becomes mysterious. Of course, by thesame token, the assumption brings with it the threat of epiphenomenalism ofthe mental. I shall turn to these issues towards the end of the paper.

For now I shall concentrate on the problem Papineau and Macdonaldclaim to find with the picture. Macdonald begins his critical discussionby noting (p. ) how implausible it is for the same supervening event to be


4 For the original presentation, see J. Fodor, ‘Special Sciences’ (), repr. in hisRePresentations (MIT Press, ), pp. –. For a more recent statement of his commitmentto this picture, see his The Elm and the Expert (MIT Press, ), pp. –, .

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realized in physical events that have nothing in common with one another.He goes on to say that the implausibility is compounded by the fact that

the causal efficacy of the supervening event regularly brings it about that its nomo-logically related effect occurs, but it does this in virtue of the causality it inherits fromthe associated physical events. The puzzle is how the same supervening event can bedependent for its causal powers on such causally different physical events. Manyinstantiations of the causal process whereby S1 produces S2 are covered by differentphysical laws, yet it is the case that varied physical causes happen to produce an effectwhich must instantiate S2. The wonder is how such causal harmony is achieved.

For Papineau (I&T p. ), the picture is also puzzling:

If the different Pi s have nothing in common, then how come they all give rise to Q i swhich do have something in common, namely that they are all realizations of S2?

Thus if I have, say, a desire for ice-cream, this may generally cause me toreach for an ice-cream in front of me. But if this desire may be realized asone of a potentially infinite set of physical states with no common properties,then how can it be other than miraculous that each of these leads me toreach for an ice-cream? Given that they are so diverse in nature, one wouldexpect them to lack any commonality in their effects. For Papineau andMacdonald, at least, these considerations threaten the idea of non-reducibility which Fodor’s picture seeks to maintain: if there is no explana-tion forthcoming as to why the different physical states all have the sameupshot, then we shall be forced to assume that in fact they harbour aphysical commonality after all.

I must stress that, though I do think there is something problematic withFodor’s picture, I do not see as clearly as, it seems, these authors do whatthe nature of the puzzle amounts to. Nor do I see it as obviously threateningreductionism, as I shall shortly indicate. Indeed, in the following section Ishall argue that, given what Papineau and Macdonald concede to Fodor,the puzzle as it is initially presented simply does not arise.

This is not chiefly because I reject their way of characterizing it. Thus Iagree that, as Papineau in particular stresses (I&T p. ), the objection toFodor’s picture cannot be that it is inconsistent, but merely that it is in-credible: it is not impossible, but in some sense simply miraculous, that thephysical laws should comport themselves in the way the psychological lawstipulates even though there is nothing that ensures this. In addition, I agreethat the problem, if it is one, remains, however narrowly or restrictedly oneconstrues the conception of laws on which it is based (I&T §). All the same,Papineau does not seem to take seriously the fact that special-science lawsare typically less than strict, whereas those of physics may be strict. If this isthe case, straightforward reduction could never be an option. Of course, for



Papineau and Macdonald, this is a bridge which they need not cross if, asthey believe, teleology can save the Fodorian picture.

This problem with Papineau’s dialectic is related to the fact that theproblem he and Macdonald identify, the ‘miraculous coincidence problem’,5

should at least be distinguished from a similar one discussed by AdrianCussins, which I shall call the ‘marching-in-step problem’. Cussins presentsthis as a problem for what he calls pluralism, the view that, in the case of themental, ‘folk-psychological’ explanations of behaviour are explanatorilyunconnected with those of neurophysiology. In addition, the problem ispresented (CCC p. ) in a more epistemological mode, as concerning adisparity between the different levels of explanation, rather than betweenefficacious states at just the lower level:

Our folk-psychologist concerns himself with the patterns of rationality and intention-ality amongst the beliefs, desires, intentions, memories, perceptions, and imaginationsof the subject and knows nothing about the build-up of a causally potent neuro-transmitter in a certain cortical region. Yet he predicts just those folk-psychologicalbehaviours which are compatible with the physiological behaviour which was causedby the cortical activity. And this miracle, given the ubiquity of our two predictors,happens in each person every day.

I should stress that Cussins’ point does not merely rely weakly on the factthat we do not know how our psychology relates to our physiology: the pointis a principled one. It is that, given just the assumption that both folk-psychology and physiology enjoy success as explanatory schemes, there issomething puzzling about the fact that when I desire an ice-cream, say,there is harmony between this desire and the functioning of my physiology.In particular, it is prima facie puzzling why there is not a battle for control ofmy arm between my desire to reach out for the ice-cream before me and theneurophysiological impulses that directly move my muscles. What makesthis harmony more than a coincidence? Why does my arm move in a wayappropriate to reaching out for an ice-cream, and not in some completelyinappropriate way? Why is it that a neurophysiological prediction turns outto be such that it marches in step with a psychological prediction, given thatthey have their starting-points in very different kinds of properties?

For Cussins, this is a problem we need to solve, and in solving it we haveto give up the null hypothesis of pluralism. However, the whole point of theargument is not to get a concession that, say, the mental should be regardedas reducible to the physical, or even that it supervenes on the physical; it israther to generate a detailed account of how the mental relates to thephysical, or neurophysiological, for it turns out that these schemes engender


5 See the editorial introduction in Charles and Lennon, p. .

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inexplicable coincidences if taken as completely independent quantities. Nodoubt demonstrating a successful reduction of the mental to the neuro-physiological would be one way of giving such an account, but there is no apriori reason for supposing this to be the only option. Moreover, if there werecompelling reasons for thinking that a reduction is impossible – if inparticular psychological laws are not fully strict, whilst those of physics are –this would not threaten to undermine the marching-in-step problem. Forwhat the puzzle demands is nothing more, but also nothing less, than aresearch programme whose aim will be to give a satisfying theory of whatCussins calls ‘embodied cognition’, a theory of how mind and matter marchin step. It is a philosophical argument for the need for cognitive science (seeespecially his ‘The Limitations of Pluralism’). Clearly the mere assumptionof a reduction relation will not provide this, whilst an assumption of meresupervenience, or even some yet weaker metaphysical relation, need notconstitute a principled barrier to providing it.

Nevertheless it seems clear that Cussins would fail in his attempt atembarrassing the pluralist, if the latter were committed and clear-sightedenough. In particular, Fodor’s physicalist pluralism, as represented in theabove diagram, need not be embarrassed by the marching-in-step puzzle.For that puzzle depends on the idea that the typing of human actions is insome way answerable to the physical possibilities of the body; and on thepicture presented above, as with pure pluralism, this is not the case: the Q ishave in common just that they realize S2. If this is the case, there can be nopuzzle as to how neurophysiology can predict something that marches instep with the psychological, for they will not share explananda in anysignificant sense.

Of course, one may regard this aspect of the above picture as implausible,and indeed one may see it as a virtue of Cussins’ arguments to have de-monstrated this. I shall not take a stand on this issue, though in the followingtwo sections (§§III and IV) I shall discuss, in relation to the miraculouscoincidence problem and the proposed teleological solution of it, the variantof Fodor’s picture in which only S1 but not S2 is variably realized. Ishall return to the relationship between the miraculous coincidence andmarching-in-step problems, plus the general plausibility of the Fodor pic-ture, in the final section (§V).

III

For most of the rest of this article I shall concentrate on Papineau’sdevelopment of the miraculous coincidence puzzle and his teleological



solution to it. What he demands is that the miraculous coincidence which hethinks Fodor’s account entails must be somehow explained. His general lineis that it cannot be explained unless one assumes one of two things. Either(i) one must accept reductionism, the assumption that there is some physicalcommonality underlying the realization of all special categories; or (ii) onemust supplement Fodor’s picture with a dose of teleology: for Macdonald,this is expressed by saying (p. ) that one must give up the idea that special-science explanations are causal. Both Papineau and Macdonald think that(ii) can be sustained. Macdonald actually denies that a selectionist supple-ment can adequately capture mental explanation, since the latter involves anormative rather than a functional dimension. For the purposes of thispaper, this is not important, since all my important points concern equallythe relationship between special sciences in general and basic science. Iuse the mental and functionalism in the philosophy of mind as the mainexamples of this relationship because most of the disputants in the debatediscussed assume a naturalist way of construing the mental, and becausedoing so is what makes giving answers to the questions about reducibilityand variable realizability so urgent.

However, before offering his own teleological account, Papineau (I&Tpp. –) considers what might be seen as an obvious riposte to the puzzle.One asks: why do nearly all realizations of wanting an ice-cream lead toreachings for an ice-cream in front of one, when the former have nothingphysically in common? And the answer is: because they are de facto realiza-tions of wanting an ice-cream, and, in general, wanting an ice-cream willlead one to reach out for one. In other words, one appeals precisely to thespecial-science law itself to explain the ‘coincidence’. The class of physicalstates Pi, regarded as such, certainly have nothing in common; but thenneither is it true that the Q is they each lead to, construed likewise asphysical states, have anything in common (cf. the reply to Cussins above). Ifwe construe these Q is as realizers of S2, then they do have something incommon, but then it seems eminently reasonable to regard the Pis as havingsomething in common as well, namely that they are realizers of S1 – aproperty which is related to S2 by a natural, albeit special, law. Either waythere are no miraculous coincidences.

Papineau’s response to this line is to allow that it may work for purepsychological generalizations, but he goes on to point out that since thereare also psycho-physical generalizations where psychological properties arerelated to physical properties, this cannot be the whole story (the samelinkage to the physical also obtains with other special sciences). For example,there is a law relating sitting on a drawing-pin to feeling pain, where thelatter but not the former is variably realized. One might also imagine that


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there are certain physical commonalities in our behavioural responses tocertain types of pain. These ideas are of course reminiscent of functionalismas a theory in the philosophy of mind, and indeed Papineau takes function-alism as his prime target in PN. For a classical functionalist in the philosophyof mind, mental states are defined – or, if functionalism is construedempirically, exhaustively accounted for – by reference to physically specifiedinputs and outputs, and by reference to one another, but are not reducibleto physical states of the brain. Papineau’s objection to Fodor’s picturecarries over to functionalism via the idea of psycho-physical laws: if a certainmental state S1 is variably realized physically, then how come it is caused byand leads to the same physical state each time it is realized? As he puts it, ‘ingeneral, we expect physically similar states to have similar effects, andphysically different states to have different effects’ (PN p. ). He holds thisbecause he believes that every pattern should be explicable by some kind oflaw, and divergences from the mentioned principles would involve patternsthat are inexplicable. If we seem to have divergences from these principles,they must be explicated by some other mechanism. Otherwise reductionismis the only intellectually defensible option.

Why cannot the psycho-physical laws be used to explain these coincid-ences, just as psychological laws were used to explain the earlier onesdiscussed? The point seems to be that these laws already involve an un-acceptable physical state of affairs, one in which diversity at one end of acausal chain is accompanied by unity at the other. The uneasiness aboutsuch states of affairs that Papineau feels seems closely related to the sense ofuneasiness that Cussins’ marching-in-step problem tries to force on us. ForCussins, it is not necessarily physical diversity at the cause end of the causalchain which is problematic, but rather the fact that we have two con-ceptually divergent explanatory schemes which both predict somethingphysically similar. Nevertheless it is the fact that those predictions convergewhich is puzzling, and which requires explaining. (For now, I shall assumethat this intellectually puzzling diversity does demand explanation, returningin §V to the reasonableness of the demand.)

That it is these (putative) problems that are fundamental suggests that theinitial dissatisfaction with Fodor’s picture was somewhat mis-stated, to saythe least, by Papineau and Macdonald; for where both cause and effect arevariably physically realized, there are no problematic physical states ofaffairs, and thus, as Papineau concedes, no miraculous coincidences to ex-plain. In the following section, I shall assess the extent to which func-tionalism can be said to lead to the problem Papineau identifies, and then,assuming that it does lead to that problem, present and then criticizePapineau’s (and, by the same token, Macdonald’s) solution to it.



IV

Now a chief argument for functionalism is indeed the idea that mental statesare not reducible to categorical brain states like C-fibre stimulation: beliefsand desires and pains and emotions do not need to be realized in particularkinds of organic material, so, whatever they are, our theory of them hadbetter not commit us to the idea that they must be so realized. One pointPapineau seems to overlook is that this does not imply that functionalism isnon-reductionist, in so far as it remains open that there may be resourceswithin physical theory to characterize the functional kinds that mental statesare claimed to be (see Charles and Lennon p. ). So it is not clear thatfunctionalism is committed to the kinds of one–many and many–one causalrelationships that Papineau objects to. In addition, it might be claimed that,to the extent functionalism succeeds in defining (or exhaustively accountingfor) mental states partly in terms of physically specifiable inputs and outputs,broadly physical kinds will be forthcoming to cover the mental properties.Thus the kind of mental state which is caused by sitting on a pin, and whichcauses a certain physical reaction, will plausibly be one that neurophysiologyhas a good deal to say about. (One might object that neurophysiology willnot be reducible to physics if it has interesting things to say about pains. Iam not sure this is right, but all it shows, if it is right, is that reducibility asPapineau conceives of it is not very threatening to an autonomous psych-ology: cf. the discussion of Cussins at pp. – above.)

One might think that, when it comes to other kinds of mental state suchas beliefs and desires, such neurophysiological implementation constraintsare unlikely to be forthcoming. However, it could also be plausibly arguedthat beliefs and desires will be among those mental states which in any caseare not susceptible to definition by reference to physically specified inputsand outputs – at least not unless these inputs and outputs are seen as distalcauses of behaviour and perceptual states rather than the proximal behav-iours and perceptual states themselves. In either case, the psychologicalgeneralizations that subsume these mental states will not be reducible tophysical or psycho-physical laws. But then – even by Papineau’s lights, andas we have seen – fully autonomous psychological laws do not engendermiraculous coincidences.

In other words, to the extent functionalism yields an adequate psych-ology, there might be little reason to doubt the possibility of reduction,whereas to the extent reduction seems unlikely, functionalism also looksinadequate. Either way, the miraculous coincidence problem would lapse.


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Let us, however, assume that functionalism, to the extent it is acceptable,would not yield to a physicalist reduction. In addition, let us suppose thatmuch of human behaviour is such that its psychological typing is in factconstrained by some physical typing: for example, there is some physicalproperty, perhaps a structural or functional one, which all reachings forclose, smallish, edible objects share (Papineau makes this perhaps plausibleassumption in PN, and, as we have seen, so does Cussins). Then the problemcan again appear pressing: how is it that disparate physical realizations ofmy desire for ice-cream all give rise to this same physical response?

What Papineau and Macdonald both argue is that we can avoid reduc-tionism here if, but only if, we embrace teleological ways of construingmental states (or, in Macdonald’s case, special states – see §II above): mentalstates are selected for particular purposes, and it is this which explains whythe class of their realizing states is physically unrelated to the class of therealizing states of their effects. On Papineau’s picture, mental states areselected by learning mechanisms, which suppress some neural pathways andenhance others according to what kind of result they lead to, whilst forMacdonald, special states are selected through evolutionary pressures.

The account of teleology which both Papineau and Macdonald assume isthus what is termed the aetiological account, and is perhaps that most familiarto non-biologists. This commitment is not uncontroversial. Thus in thephilosophy of biology, besides the aetiological account, there is in additionthe goal-directed account of teleology. Whereas the former seeks to explain thefunction of teleological features of biological organisms in terms of theirhaving been selected by some learning or evolutionary mechanism, thelatter eschews this historical account in favour of one in which goals ofthe system can be adequately characterized in terms of their complex syn-chronic properties. I assume the correctness of the aetiological account forthe sake of the present argument. I shall here concentrate again on Papi-neau’s claim for ease of exposition, though at one point it will be importantto distinguish his position from Macdonald’s.

For mental states, such as wanting an ice-cream in front of one, the virtueof seeing them teleologically then becomes (PN p. ) that

we needn’t be puzzled as to how there can be similarity of effects without the physicalcommonality [of the cause], for the one thing that the learning mechanism will haveensured is that the different states which arise when different people look at an ice-cream will at least share the feature that they will produce appropriate effects inappropriate circumstances (such as reaching out for it when you are hungry).

So reductionism of psychological properties and laws need not obtain, norof any properties that are teleological in nature. Special sciences that are not



teleological, however, or that cannot be reduced to something teleological,will in the end be reduced to physics.

I do not, however, see that this account can solve the problem Papineauand Macdonald identify. As noted, for Papineau, we expect only like causesto produce like effects and vice versa – i.e., ‘like causes, like effects’ is afundamental principle, albeit with rare exceptions. So how do we avoid thecoincidences that mental causation involves? According to Papineau,different internal physical states realizing one and the same mental state canlead to the same physical kind of behavioural response because the relevantphysical states are selected to do this by learning mechanisms: these mech-anisms are only concerned with the effects of the internal states; hence theycan explain why these internal states should be physically dissimilar eventhough their effect is the same. However, it seems germane at this point toraise a question about the nature of the state of affairs prior to the onset ofthe learning phase. Clearly, if a learning mechanism is going to select aphysical property because of its effect, this property must already have thiseffect as one of its natural upshots. But then if a learning mechanism is goingto explain how different internal causes can lead to the same effect, asPapineau claims it can, it would seem to follow that all of these differentcauses must already have as a natural upshot this common effect. In otherwords, if Papineau’s learning-theory explanation of the existence of unlikecauses with like effects is to operate, then, even before the onset of learning,we must have a state of affairs in which certain classes of internal physicalcauses are such that they are all different, yet lead to the same externaleffect. Surely this must now count as a miraculous coincidence, givenPapineau’s stipulation that in general we expect like causes to be related tolike effects; yet it is a coincidence which cannot be explained by learningtheory. And if we were to explain it by resort to some other teleologicalmechanism, such as evolution as Macdonald suggests, then exactly parallelconsiderations could be brought to bear to show that such an explanationalso presupposes the same unexplained classes of dissimilar physical causesleading to the same effect.

It is important to remember here that it is not the learning mechanism it-self which creates the diversity in the internal cause: the learning mechanismjust selects whatever leads to the relevant piece of fecund behaviour, and asfar as it is concerned the internal states could be physically uniform as wellas diverse. Of course, the mechanism leaves it open, other things beingequal, that the internal states selected in different organisms may bedifferent; and thus, other things being equal, one might indeed expectsimilar effects to derive from dissimilar causes. But other things are notequal. For we must ultimately presuppose classes of diverse physical properties


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leading to similar effects, if learning theory is to have a chance of explainingsuch classes. These classes thus constitute unexplained coincidences, whichPapineau says cannot be tolerated; we can only therefore assume that theclasses in fact harbour an underlying physical commonality. But to say thisamounts precisely to saying that seemingly unlike physical causes whichrealize things such as pains, and which lead to like physical effects, alsoharbour an underlying physical commonality; and learning theory, alongwith teleology generally, becomes superfluous.

Of course, Papineau allows that the norm of ‘like causes, like effects’ hasoccasional exceptions: there exist rare classes of physical properties such thatthe properties in these classes are all different from one another but happento lead to the same effect. But unless we are prepared to accept anothermiraculous coincidence – that it is members of these classes that just happento be what our learning mechanisms have available to them in learningsituations – I cannot see how this is meant to help. Moreover, even if ourlearning mechanisms were always presented with these rare classes of phys-ical properties, it would not be these mechanisms that explained why theyall led to the same effect (the next paragraph spells out explicitly why).

In response to this, Papineau could claim not merely that there are rareexceptions to the norm, but also that there are lots of classes of dissimilarphysical properties which lead to the same effect. And in that case both thethreats posed by coincidences unexplained by learning theory and bythe miraculous coincidence I mention could be avoided; the price, however,would be that of making the original miraculous coincidence problem otiosetoo. Perhaps Papineau could say ‘Given that these classes of unlike physicalcauses with like effects crop up so often in humans and other types of organ-ism, be this exceptionally or otherwise, the high frequency of the phen-omenon in biological organisms remains puzzling and requires explanation’.But even if it is a fact that these kinds of classes of physical causes crop up inbiological organisms more frequently than elsewhere in the universe, whatrole can learning theory have to play in explaining this? As noted above,learning theory can explain why internal causes of fecund behaviours areselected, but it does not entail that organisms will instantiate particular kindsof classes of physical properties, namely, ones which are such that theproperties are all different but happen to have the same effect. Learningtheory explains, that is, with respect to any cause which de facto leads to acertain effect, why that cause is selected – why, given that the cause has thateffect, it is selected – namely, because it has that effect; but, since it does notthereby explain why all causes in a class identified only by the fact that theyhave the same particular effect have that effect, it does not entail that thecauses selected should be physically diverse rather than uniform. But it is



these latter facts about biological organisms, if such they be, which Papineauwould want to have explained.

One might again respond by claiming that at least learning theory leavesthe possibility of diversity of the cause open, even if it does not entail it, andthat it is in virtue of this that it explains why organisms tend to have classesof physical properties of a kind that leads to the same effect without beingthemselves similar. The explanans here presupposes that different causes’leading to similar effects at all is what requires explanation. On the versionof the puzzle we are presently considering, however, this is not the case:what we are seeking to explain is not why unlike causes should lead to likeeffects at all, but why this should occur especially often in the biologicalworld. A leaving-open kind of explanation is no explanation of this latterfact (if it is such) at all. On the other hand, if we revert to the originalproblem which Papineau presents, then, as we have noted, a teleologicalmechanism is equally impotent to resolve that; for it cannot ultimatelyexplain the existence of the kinds of classes of physical properties which aresuch that they are different and yet lead to the same effect, and whichPapineau assumes teleological mechanisms sometimes select.

At this juncture, it might be pointed out that even though teleologicalmechanisms as such will not explain either why unlike causes lead to likeeffects, or why this happens particularly often in the biological world,nevertheless there is a feature of biological organisms that makes cases ofunlike causes leading to like effects more likely in the biological world thanelsewhere. This feature is that they reproduce, and so proliferate. Hence if aclass of physical causes which are unlike but have like effects – a rare thoughnot impossible phenomenon – does get selected for in a given species, then itwill rapidly become widespread as the species reproduces and proliferates.Since Papineau sees the teleological mechanism responsible for unlikecauses’ leading to like effects as a learning device, his account is not amelior-ated by this point. But perhaps Macdonald’s, which sees the relevant mech-anism as lying in natural selection forces which operate over longer periodsof time, might appear to be. Still, the appearance is misleading. To beginwith, even on Macdonald’s account it would not be natural selection thatexplained why we find classes of unlike causes leading to like effects in thebiological world, but rather the fact that biological organisms proliferateover time. Moreover, if the initial, i.e., pre-proliferation, distribution of thedifferent classes of causes, those that conform to ‘like causes, like effects’, andthose that rather involve different physical states leading to the same phys-ical effect, is roughly the same in biological organisms as anywhere else inthe universe – and we have seen nothing to suggest otherwise on Papineau’sand Macdonald’s accounts – then the relative proportions of these classes of


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causes would not be expected to vary significantly as the actual number oforganisms in the different species increases. So, even taking into accountproliferation, there would be no reason to suppose that classes of causes thatare unlike but have like effects would be more common in the biologicalworld, in relation to the size of that world, than anywhere else.

In sum: whilst it may seem as if teleology can explain the puzzles, in itsstress on the effects of our desires and beliefs, this is an illusion. I suggest thatit only seems convincing so long as one drifts back and forth between, on theone hand, the problem of how unlike causes can have like effects at all, and,on the other, the problem of why biological organisms in particular shouldinstantiate classes of causes of this kind. When pressure is put on teleology’sability to solve the first, the emphasis shifts to the second, but a solution tothis presupposes that the first problem can be solved.

Teleology, in the aetiological sense I have been discussing, is no doubtsomething which naturally connects with thoughts of variable realizability.There are many different ways of running fast, many different ways ofpumping blood around the system, etc. What matters in the natural world isnot which solution one chooses, but that the chosen system works. However,to make a comparison with mental states and their production of fecundbehaviour would be most inappropriate here. For what is typically variablyrealized in the biological world is the effect, not the cause. Having long orstrong legs is physically uniform; what is physically non-uniform is runningfast. Or at least, having long legs is not as anomalous relative to the physicalbases as running fast: the point is that the different solutions which areselected for in the different species are particular physical features that havecertain favourable upshots, upshots that themselves are physically non-uniform. So even if having strong or long legs is physically non-uniform, itdoes not help Papineau or Macdonald. For, in the psychological case, if thepuzzle is to arise it has to be true that the adaptive effect is physically uni-form (cf. §III above).

This discussion may nevertheless suggest that an amendment toPapineau’s and Macdonald’s accounts might be made: we could look at themental state as the feature selected for, rather than the behaviouralresponse. This amendment might build on a feature of psycho-physical gen-eralizations I have not focused on, the relationship between inputs andmental states. And indeed it may seem reasonable to regard a felt pain as anadaptively advantageous response to certain kinds of bodily disruption.However, the variable realizability of such pains is not something teleologycan explain. For teleology can explain only why causes are selected, noteffects. So teleology does not explain the variable realizability of mentalstates regarded as effects. If anything, it assumes it.



What about the original problem, where two variably realized special-science categories are related in a law-like way? As indicated above in §III, itseems there is hardly anything puzzling about this state of affairs. But even ifwe assume it is a problem, it should be clear that teleology is no more in aposition to explain it than to explain a one–many or many–one relationshipbetween physical states. The incredible coincidence to be explained wouldbe that all the Q is which result from the Pis realizing S1 realize S2, and theteleological explanation would be that this is not puzzling, because that iswhat all the Pis are selected for. Now Pis are physical events or states whichrealize S1, as a matter of fact, and Q is are physical events which realize S2,as a matter of fact. The proposal is that these Pis are selected because theylead to Q is. But now for this selection to occur, the Pis would already haveto lead to their respective Q is – in other words, it would have to be the casealready that all the Pis which realize S1 lead to Q is that realize S2. It followsthat the selection mechanism in question does not explain the supposedmiraculous coincidence, and, by extension of the argument, that no selec-tion mechanism could. The rest of the details from the above discussionapply directly to this case.

In sum, teleology does nothing to explain the diversity in the physicalrealization of mental states when these lead to physically uniform effects, ornon-uniform effects, or when they arise from physically uniform effects. Thenext question is: does this still leave us with the task of explaining a wholeload of unexplained coincidences? Teleology may not solve the miraculouscoincidence problem, but the problem may remain nevertheless.

V

We must remember that the problem remains only in so far as we assumethat functionalism captures some of the truth about our mental states, andalso that the functional kinds it postulates do not reduce to physical kinds.Related assumptions, albeit not involving functionalism or reductionism perse, underlie Cussins’ marching-in-step problem: his claim is that, given thatfolk-psychology is explanatorily autonomous with respect to neurophysi-ology, and yet mental states are systematically related to behaviouralupshots that are susceptible to some kind of physical typing, it seemsincredible, and in need of explanation, that both folk-psychology and neuro-physiology manage to predict these same physical behaviours.

Given these assumptions, Cussins’ problem strikes me as convincing, aswell as inviting a solution which allows that psychological laws may not bereducible, something which is plausible anyway, given their non-strict status.


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Papineau, on the other hand, sees the functionalist picture of the mind aspuzzling because he believes that any pattern should be explicable by somekind of law, and any case where unlike causes lead to like effects is ceterisparibus a divergence from this principle. But the idea that all patterns shouldbe explicable is stronger and more controversial than the requirement thattwo explanatory schemes that share explananda should somehow and in someway yield to an investigation of connecting mechanisms. It thus seems thatwhile we have support, given Cussins’ assumptions, for an account of howour physiology relates to our mental life, we do not, given the truth of non-reductive functionalism, have convincing reasons for holding a generalrequirement that coincidences of the kind Papineau refers to need to beexplained (either by embracing reductionism or, misguidedly on my view,by offering a teleological supplement).

For a committed pluralist, neither problem will seem prepossessing,because of the assumptions which drive them both. What problems remainfor a pluralist who also wishes to subscribe to the Fodorian picture? Theissue is too large to discuss in detail here. I shall outline what seems to me tobe the fundamental problem, Fodor’s solution to it, and why I think thatsolution cannot work. The upshot, I shall suggest, is that we need to recon-ceive the role of physicalism in metaphysics and the philosophy of science.

The problem is this. On the one hand, anti-reductionists seek to re-gard the mental as causally endowed; on the other hand, they seek to regardthese causal powers as somehow based in physical states. For Fodor, theformer requirement takes some precedence, for there are psychological laws,albeit non-strict ones. Given that, why should we need to regard thesepowers as based in anything physical – even in the weak, supervenient way?Fodor’s answer to this question, an answer which is at bottom an empiricalhypothesis, is that non-strict laws tend also to be non-basic: they require amechanism for their operation, whose failure to operate in certain circum-stances explains why they sometimes fail to hold.6 In the case of the mental,this mechanism is in the first instance the language of thought, or brainsyntax, construed on the model of the digital computer. This level is in turnrealized in neural hardware, and thus in physical stuff whose operations arebasic, i.e., do not need an intervening mechanism to operate.

But this line faces a fatal dilemma. On the one hand, if the basic physicallaws are strict laws, then it seems that the laws of the level immediatelyabove that of basic physics cannot be non-strict, for non-strictness isprecisely explained by mechanisms that can fail to operate in certaincircumstances. But then this strictness will clearly ‘infect’ all the levels that


6 See Fodor, ‘Making Mind Matter More’, in his A Theory of Content and Other Essays (MITPress, ), esp. pp. , –.


rest on this next-lowest level. And if that is the case, then the need to posit alower-level mechanism, and with it physicalism, lapses. On the other hand,if the basic physical laws are not strict, then the idea that non-strictness canbe explained by mechanisms must be false (since these basic physical lawswill not have their non-strictness thus explained). And thus again the moveto physicalism is blocked, for why should psychological laws need amechanism more than physical ones?

Fodor has at times described the view that they do need this mechanismas a metaphysical prejudice against intentional causation, on the groundthat intentional contents involve non-actual entities.7 One dialecticalproblem with this suggestion is that it seemingly cannot apply to any otherspecial science, a problem that is compounded by the fact that psychology’sstatus as an autonomous but physically based science is meant to reside in afairly direct parallel between it and other special sciences. There also seemsto be some tension between Fodor’s thoroughgoing naturalism and theontological presuppositions of the argument. The issues here are complex,but it is at least clear that, unless some kind of supplementary argumentationcan be substantiated, Fodor’s overall position is seriously weakened.

In the course of the foregoing discussion, we have seen that even if thereis a miraculous coincidence problem of the kind Papineau and Macdonaldidentify, it is not clear that it demands resolution, and we have also seen thatin any case teleology is not in a position to solve it. On the other hand, somekind of account of how the mental is composed or built up from the physicalor neurophysiological may be required in order to solve the related problempresented by Cussins – given also that this is a problem. If neither areregarded as problems, a possibility I have very definitely left open, it seemsthat there will nevertheless be considerable difficulty for the picture whichFodor recommends.

I think we can draw a moral from these conclusions concerning physical-ism, as follows: if you think mental properties, or the properties of any otherspecial domain, are constrained by fundamental physical properties, thenone of your jobs should be showing how this can be so, in terms of some kindof constituting relationship between the physical properties and the specialproperties. In other words, whether or not one accepts Cussins’ marching-in-step problem, the kind of account of the relationship between the physicaland the mental which that account seeks to generate should be offered.Claiming a supervenience or a reduction relation in favour of a pluralist orpossibly eliminativist option will seem otherwise arbitrary – it cannot, in anycase, be supported by the difference between basic and non-basic sciences in


7 See, e.g., his Psychosemantics (MIT Press, ), pp. –.

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the way Fodor has most recently suggested. The problem with Fodor’spicture is thus not in the end any internal tension or improbability of thekind that Papineau and Macdonald push, but simply that it appears arbi-trary. Physicalism cannot, it seems, be the fall-back option in metaphysicsand philosophy of science that many have supposed it to be.8

University of Oslo


8 I would like to thank David Papineau for comments on an earlier version of this paper. Ialso thank the participants at a senior seminar at the Philosophy Department, University ofOslo, September , for their responses to the parts of the paper presented there, those whoattended Tom Stoneham’s reading group on Papineau’s book at Oriel College, Oxford, in theHilary Term of , and anonymous referees of The Philosophical Quarterly.


Physicalism, Teleology and the Miraculous Coincidence Problem

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