Nathalie BULLE, The Causal Closure of the Physical Challenged in the Light of Causality —The Case of Biological Mutations, Open Journal of Philosophy, 15(4). , 2025, 935-956

Abstract
The main challenge to mental causation arises from the causal exclusion argu
ment proposed by Jaegwon Kim, which involves the principles of causal closure
of the physical domain and non-overdetermination. The central aim of this
article is to counter this argument with the idea that phenomena of essential
chance—such as “absolute coincidences”—underlie intrinsic creations over the
course of evolution. In the case of a mutation, given the symbolic nature of the
genetic code, the potential functional effects resulting from an alteration in an
organism’s DNA sequence are not a necessary outcome of the preexisting state
of the natural system, even defined probabilistically: The probabilistic chance un
derlying the alteration of the genotype is converted into an essential chance of
the functional effects of mutations. This instance of causal intransitivity chal
lenges the principle of causal closure and makes room for the appearance of en
tities and properties that are causally irreducible to those that preceded them.
Keywords
Mind-Body Problem, Causal Closure, Causality, Philosophy of Mind,
Evolutionary Biology