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A Madhyamaka Critique Of Jaegwon Kim's Supervenience Argument, Tyler J. Jungbauer

Comparative Philosophy

Jaegwon Kim’s supervenience argument objects to the possibility of emergent causation (both downward and same-level) based on both (1) the causal overdetermination of both (a) higher-level emergent events and (b) lower-level basal events, and (2) the causal closure principle of the physical domain. Kim argues that emergent causation entails epiphenomenalism. Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy skeptically critiques the primary (ultimate) existence of causal phenomena and instead suggests that all such phenomena may only be secondarily (conventionally) existent. Mādhyamikas acknowledge that, conventionally, emergent phenomena appear to cause both basal phenomena and other emergent phenomena. However, contra Kim, Mādhyamikas doubt that causal relations ultimately …