The aim of this paper is threefold.

First, I shall introduce the “current state of play” in philosophy of mind. This will begin with a survey, framed for a general audience, of the major views in the field, and an explanation of such key notions as “inter-theoretic reduction” and “supervenience”. I shall then introduce the problem of the explanatory gaps, and the characteristic analysis of these given by each of the four camps, locating them with respect to the answers each gives to four questions:

1. Is inter-theoretic reducibility the norm in the natural sciences?
2. Do phenomena of the special sciences supervene upon physical phenomena?
3. Is it possible to give an inter-theoretic reduction of all mental phenomena?
4. Do mental phenomena supervene upon physical phenomena?

In the second part of the talk, I shall begin by focusing on the fact that proponents of all four major views generally answer “yes” to questions 1 and 2. However, philosophers of science have, over the past several decades, generally rejected the view that inter-theoretic reduction is a general account of how the special sciences are related to physics. Thus, philosophers of mind tend to be framing their problems in terms of an outdated assumption from the philosophy of science of the mid-20th century.

The third part of the talk then turns to the question of what implications the general rejection of inter-theoretic reductions in philosophy of science ought to have for philosophy of mind. Clearly, post-reductionist philosophy of science weakens the case for reductionism and at least some forms of eliminativism, and “vindicates” the intuition that there can be explanatory gaps between mind and brain. However, it also raises important problems for dualism and non-reductive physicalism. Dualists typically argue that failures of reduction imply failures of supervenience as well, and hence if the mental phenomena are irreducible, they must be non-physical. But if chemistry and biology are not reducible to physics, this principle would require us to conclude that chemical and biological phenomena are non-physical as well. Likewise, while post-reductionist analyses of the relations between the sciences bolster the non-reductive side of non-reductive physicalism, they leave physicalism a standpoint of faith, devoid of scientific evidence.