Emergence Unscathed: Kim on Non-Reducible Types
Ron McClamrock
Abstract
[0] Jaegwon Kim has recently argued that the widespread assumption of
the multiple realizability of higher-level kinds -- and in particular,
psychological kinds -- conflicts with some fundamental constraints on
both materialistic metaphysics and scientific taxonomy. Kim concludes
that the multiple realizability of psychological kinds would leave
them "disqualified as proper scientific kinds" (Kim 1992: 18), and
that search for a scientific psychology should focus instead on more
reductive or type-materialist possibilities. If correct, this would
strikingly undermine a widespread assumption in the philosophy of mind
and cognitive science. But it's not.