Physicalism, Teleology and the Miraculous Coincidence Problem

The paper concerns the model of the relationship between special sciences and physics espoused by Jerry Fodor, and a criticism of this model put forward by (amongst others) David Papineau and Graham Macdonald to the effect that it entails that the causal stability of (in particular) the mental in its production of behaviour is nothing short of a miraculous coincidence. Papineau and Macdonald argue that a solution to this problem must involve a teleological construal of special science categories. I argue that it is far from clear that Fodor�s picture involves miraculous coincidences, and that even if it does, teleological accounts are incapable of explaining them. I also argue that the so-called �miraculous coincidence problem� is subtly different from a similar one identified by Adrian Cussins. Cussins� problem is not any more decisive as an objection to Fodor�s picture, but the kind of account of the relation between the physical and the psychological which would constitute a solution to it is nevertheless one which a physicalist of Fodor�s stripe ought to provide.