Jungbauer, T. J. (2024). A Madhyamaka critique of Jaegwon Kims supervenience argument. Comparative Philosophy, 15(1), 67-96. doi:10.31979/2151-6014(2024).150108
[Abstract]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 exist between, or among, emergent phenomena and basal phenomena because they doubt that anything ultimately exists. As such, the Madhyamaka critique of causality may provide a skeptical response to Kim because Kim assumes that both emergent and basal phenomena are primarily existent. Altogether, I argue that if we draw upon and accept the Madhyamaka critique of causality, then we may resolve Kim’s problem of epiphenomenalism by reconceptualizing causality as a relation obtaining conventionally between phenomena, while remaining silent on the status of causation at the ultimate level of truth. By arguing this point, I do not mean to suggest that the Madhyamaka critique of causality, while plausible, is in fact correct. Rather, I intend only to show that plausible responses to Kim’s argument may be found by considering less commonly taught philosophical traditions in relation to Kim’s metaphysical assumptions.
[Citing Place (1956)]  
Citing Place (1956) in context (citations start with an asterisk *):
Section 5. A MADHYAMAKA SOLUTION
* [S]uppose p does have two causes, m and p*. [...] Since m and p* are both causes of p, m and p* are conventionally interdependent: Whenever the assertability conditions for p obtain, the assertability conditions for both m and p* obtain. That is, regarding p, the assertability conditions for m obtain iff the assertability conditions for p* obtain. Hence, explaining p requires referring to both mental and physical causes because these causes’ assertability conditions are intertwined.
Also, m and p* are distinct causes because m is a mental concept and p* is a physical concept. In our language, mental and physical concepts have different meanings (Garfield 2001, 513; Place 1956, 44–45; Smart 2021, 72). Thus, propositions involving m are irreducible to propositions involving p*, and vice versa, because these concepts are intensionally distinct. Since we refer to both m and p* to explain p, we ipso facto refer to mutually irreducible propositions to explain p. Ergo, explaining p requires mutually irreducible mental and physical concepts, so the mental cause m is not epiphenomenal with regards to p because it is explanatorily efficacious here. In this way, Mādhyamikas may preserve emergent downward causation, maintaining the spirit of emergentism in terms of levels of description, rather than in terms of ontological levels.