Philosophy and thinking of Jaegwon Kim

Jaegwon Kim (1934–2019) was a prominent American philosopher best known for his work in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. His philosophical contributions primarily involved discussions around the mind-body problem, mental causation, and the nature of properties and their instantiation. ### Key Themes in Jaegwon Kim's Philosophy: 1. **Mind-Body Problem**: - Kim was deeply engaged with the mind-body problem, particularly concerning how mental states relate to physical states. Influenced by both physicalism and dualism, he examined how the mental can be explained in terms of the physical, initiating a dialogue on whether mental phenomena can be fully reduced to physical phenomena. 2. **Supervenience**: - He introduced the concept of supervenience as a way to understand the relationship between mental and physical properties. Supervenience suggests that if two entities are identical in their mental properties, they must also be identical in their physical properties. This relationship creates a framework for discussing how mental states depend on physical states without reducing mental states entirely to physical explanations. 3. **Mental Causation**: - One of Kim’s major contributions was his exploration of mental causation, specifically the issue of how mental events can cause physical events if they are not themselves physical. He developed the "causal closure" principle in physicalism, arguing that if the physical world is causally closed, then it's challenging for non-physical (mental) events to have causal efficacy. 4. **Property Dualism vs. Physicalism**: - Kim argued for a form of physicalism that allows for the existence of higher-level properties (like mental properties) while insisting that these properties don't have causal powers unless they are connected to their underlying physical bases. He tackled the problem of how to account for mental properties without resorting to dualism, which would imply a separation from the physical realm. 5. **Reductionism**: - His views on reductionism emphasize the need for a workable framework that accommodates the complexity of mental phenomena. He supported a kind of reductionism that recognizes the legitimacy of mental properties while maintaining that they must ultimately be understood within a physical framework. 6. **Against Non-Reductive Physicalism**: - Kim criticized non-reductive physicalism for failing to adequately explain how mental states could have causal power if they are not reducible to physical states. He argued that such a stance leads to problems with mental causation and could result in a form of epiphenomenalism, where mental states are seen as mere by-products of physical processes without any causal role. ### Legacy: Jaegwon Kim’s work is influential in contemporary discussions about the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. His arguments on supervenience and mental causation have shaped ongoing debates in philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and body. His clear, analytical approach continues to provide a robust framework for examining the complexities of mental phenomena within a broadly physicalist worldview.