This paper aims at generally situating the issue of mental causation in the contemporary debate in the philosophy of mind. From the work of authors such as Smart, Putnam, Davidson and, more importantly, Kim, I shall try to delineate what came to be known, since the fifties, as the main efforts to solve the problem of mental causation. In consonance with Kim's work, I shall claim that the type-type identity theory, functionalism, and anomalous monism, in general, are not easily understood as viable positions to increase our understanding of how mental properties, or types, may be seen to have causal potency in a physical world. I shall conclude that since the relation of supervenience does not offer us a legitimate solution to the problem, as indicated by Kim's most recent work, we are left with two stunning options: mind-body reductionism or epiphenomenalism. I shall choose none, although I suggest reductionism to be less problematic.
mental causation; type identity theory; functionalism; anomalous monism
