Abstract

Within the framework of philosophy of mind, this paper addresses the problem of mental causation in John Searle's biological naturalist project (2007, 2000). Beginning with the conception of the mind as a phenomenon emerging from cerebral processes, I evaluate the criticisms that Jaegwon Kim (2007, 2000) makes to the causal efficacy of consciousness, focusing on the arguments of overdetermination and violation of the principle of physical causal closure. Then, I analyze the debate on mental causation from the findings of Benjamin Libet (2004) regarding the existence of pre-conscious neural activity in voluntary motor behavior. This activity, called readiness potential, and the notion of causation worked in neuroscience, support the causal efficacy of mental states, but in a different sense from that proposed by Searle.