Program explanations and causal relevance

Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit have defended a non-reductive account of causal relevance known as the ‘program explanation account’. Allegedly, irreducible mental properties can be causally relevant in virtue of figuring in non-redundant program explanations which convey information not conveyed by explanations in terms of the physical properties that actually do the ‘causal work’. I argue that none of the possible ways to spell out the intuitively plausible idea of a program explanation serves its purpose, viz., defends non-reductive physicalism against Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument according to which non-reductive physicalism is committed to epiphenomenalism because irreducible mental properties are ‘screened off’ from causal relevance by their physical realizers. Jackson and Pettit’s most promising explication of a program explanation appeals to the idea of invariance of effect under variation of realization, but I show that invariance of effect under variation of realization is neither necessary nor sufficient for causal relevance.     

The thermodynamic properties of Ln2BaO4 (Ln = Sm, Dy, Ho)

The thermodynamic properties of the Ln₂BaO₄ phases (Ln = Dy, Ho, Sm) were studied by the electromotive force method with a fluoride electrolyte (890–1180 K), solution calorimetry in 1.07 N hydrochloric acid at 298.15 K, and differential scanning calorimetry (298–860 K). The experimental data were jointly processed, and the thermodynamic functions of the compounds over the temperature range 298–1200 K were calculated.     

Equilibrium Shapes of Pressure Vessel Domes in Asymmetric Winding

Errors in the programs of winding pressure vessels can lead to an asymmetric reinforcement structure, which affects the equilibrium shape of their domes and the tension in the left and right families of filaments. In this paper, equations determining the equilibrium shape of the domes, the tension in filaments, and the shear stresses between layers are obtained. Examples with winding trajectories in the form of geodesics and constant-deviation lines are considered. It is found that, for pressure vessels, in the absence of external torque, the tension levels in filaments of the left and right families differ considerably. It is also revealed that, for actual friction coefficients in winding, the shear stresses taken up by the binder are insignificant. __________ Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 41, No. 6, pp. 743–752, November–December, 2005.