本文在心靈因果排除的哲學背景下探討和研究上向因果性和下向因果性的存在問題。一般認為,上向因果性與下向因果性對于人類的認知和道德等方面的能動性具有不可或缺的重要性;而心靈因果排除論證是當前心靈哲學中最廣泛爭議的課題之一。我國學者鐘磊近期提出了一個新的觀點,認為上向因果性以及下向因果性是否存在依賴于具體的因果理論。本文檢驗并批評了鐘磊給出的相關論證,并爭辯說在所有三種不同的因果理論框架下,上向因果性都存在,而下向因果性都可能存在。這些結果對我們更好地理解心靈因果排除問題及其平行主義解決方案具有啟發意義。

This paper investigates whether upward causation and downward causation exist against the philosophical background of the exclusion of mental causation. Upward and downward causation are commonly regarded as indispensable to human epistemic and moral agency; and the exclusion of mental causation is one of the most widely debated topics in current academia of philosophy of mind. Recently,Zhong Lei proposed a new viewpoint claimed that whether upward and downward causation exist or not depends on which theory of causation is used. This paper examine and criticize Zhong’s arguments and contend that within the frameworks of the three different causal theories,upward causation always exists whereas downward causation always probably exists. These results shed light on the exclusion of the mental causation problem,especially on its parallelistic solution.