The Russellian Monist's Problems with Mental Causation

Russellian Monism, the view that phenomenal or protophenomenal properties serve as the categorical grounds of physical dispositions, has increasingly been thought to enjoy an advantage over traditional property dualism in that it avoids epiphenomenalism. This paper argues otherwise. Russellian Monism faces problems with mental causation that parallel those of traditional dualism. The best it can hope for is that phenomenal properties are causally relevant, but not in virtue of their phenomenality.