# Grounding Causal Closure or Something Near Enough

## TL;DR

The paper argues that physicalism can challenge dualism using a weaker assumption about the physical world's causal closure.

## Contribution

It introduces a new account of the grounding for physical causal closure to strengthen the physicalist argument against dualism.

## Key findings

- Physicalists can challenge dualism with a weaker closure premise.
- The causal argument for physicalism is revitalized through a novel grounding account.
- The presupposition about causal closure's ground is clarified and defended.

## Abstract

A causal argument for physicalism is widely held to pose a problem for dualism. This view has an unobvious presupposition, namely that the causal closure of the physical has a special sort of ground. The requisite sort of ground must distinguish the causal argument for physicalism from many defective causal arguments. On behalf of physicalists, I develop an account of the ground for the causal closure of the physical, thereby putting the causal argument for physicalism back in the business of causally problematizing dualism. One consequence of my account is that physicalists can pose a causal problem for dualism using a much weaker closure premise than is generally assumed.