Massive Multiple Realization, Levels and Mechanisms

BARBERIS, SERGIO

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; Ciclo de Conferencias WIP (Work in Progress); 2015

SADAF

According to the Massive Multiple Realization of Psychological Properties (MMR), many human psychological properties are multiply realized at many levels of entities studied in neurosciences. Those who endorse MMR usually think of realization as a kind of composition in which a property of a complex whole is non-causally determined by the qualitatively distinct properties of its component parts. This understanding of realization generates the problem of trivial multiple realization: given a particular instance of a psychological property, the difference between realizers at the neuronal and biochemical levels may be taken as sufficient for multiple realization. To avoid this problem, Aizawa and Gillett propose to restrict the potential realizers of a given property to collections of entities that are at the same level of entities. In this paper, I argue that there are many philosophical notions of ?level of entities? that might be relevant in the characterization of MMR, but none of them offer a satisfactory solution to the problem of trivial multiple realization. I conclude that MMR is not as precise as one would like it to be.