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Overdetermination Overdetermination, the idea that a single observed effect is determined by multiple causes at once (any one of which alone might be enough to account for the effect), was originally a key concept of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud wrote in The Interpretation of Dreams that many features of dreams were usually "overdetermined," in that they were caused by multiple factors in the life of the dreamer, from the "residue of the day" (superficial memories of recent life) to deeply repressed traumas and unconscious wishes, these being "potent thoughts". The New Critic I.A. Richards used the idea of overdetermination in order to explain the importance of ambiguity in rhetoric, the philosophy of language, and literary criticism. publicliterature.org /en/wikipedia/o/ov/overdetermination.html   (398 words)

b o r d e r l a n d s e-journal According to their definition of overdetermination, to identify any such essence would be to imply that there is a real, explicit, and literal connection that can be known between a subject or social whole and the relations that determine them. Overdetermination thus can be said to be the point at which the ensemble of contradictions that make up a "whole" system are reflected on an individual contradiction. Overdetermination, contrary to Laclau and Mouffe's definition, is thus always tied to the real even if it is primarily in relation to and can only be known through the phenomena that the real produces. www.borderlandsejournal.adelaide.edu.au /vol4no2_2005/lewis_overdetermination.htm   (7654 words)

Overdetermination Overdetermination describes Freud’s unconscious as a “thought factory” in analogy with an inexhaustibly productive team of weavers. Overdetermination refers to all the provoking causes of an hysterical symptom. In other words the phenomenon of overdetermination is in fact an effect of the unconscious as reserve of repetition and a function therefore of the inexistent repeatability of the trace--overdetermining all provocations. www.angelfire.com /de/jwp/deconstruction.html   (442 words)

The Scientific Plausibility of Overdetermination and Interactionism: A Reply to Eugene Mills Because the counterfactuals that arise from an acceptance of overdetermination are different than those that arise when overdetermination is denied, the truth or falsity of the counterfactuals at issue may support or undermine Mills' argument, namely, that dualism and causal closure lead to overdetermination. Mills goes on to assert that the prima facie case for overdetermination is complete, since it follows from (1) and (2) that B is a mental sufficient cause for the arm's rising, and there is also a physical sufficient cause for the arm's rising. For it to support overdetermination, it must be the case that (1) asserts that B is causally sufficient for E, and this does not follow at all from the truth of S1. ambient.2y.net /jon/philo/eugene_mills_reply_1.html   (2810 words)

[No title] The problem with this is that some philosophers believe that overdeterminers are never causes; rather, these philosophers believe that, in a case of overdetermination, the cause is a collective entity—something like the mereological sum of the overdeterminers or their disjunction—but not the individual overdeterminers. In essence, what the proponent of the overdetermination argument is trying to argue is that, if ordinary objects were causally efficacious, they would give rise to a type of phenomenon that would have to be widespread, whereas we have reason to believe that such phenomenon is not, as a matter of fact, widespread. In that case, the overdeterminers in Rock would probably be an event involving the rock and an event involving several atoms acting in concert (or many events, each of which describes the trajectory of a single atom). philosophy.wisc.edu /sartorio/oa.doc   (9450 words)

Overdetermination First used scientifically by Freud, overdetermination refers to a non-reductionist account of human experience and believes that the constitution of each thing is given by the totality of cause and effects that give it instantiation. Thus overdetermination is used to refer to multiple causality - or for instance in Freud a hysterical symptom or in Althusser a revolutionary situation – or just the social itself. In Althusser the need for a concept of overdetermination appears in Marxism at the point where the ideology of simple and general contradictions is undermined by historical process. www.generation-online.org /c/coverdetermination.htm   (287 words)

[No title]   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07) In section 2, I elaborate the role of epistemic overdetermination in a theory of knowledge, and argue that the Explanatory Simplicity Principle is incompatible with a form of epistemic overdetermination. The first type of epistemic overdetermination occurs when we have more than one justification for a particular belief, each of which is sufficient to justify the belief in question in the absence of the others, and they come from the same source. The second type of epistemic overdetermination occurs when we have more than one justification for a particular belief, each of which is sufficient to justify the belief in question in the absence of the others, and they come from different sources. www.unl.edu /philosop/people/faculty/casullo/Overdetermination_PP.htm   (6396 words)

Overdetermination was first used in a social scientific context by Freud Overdetermination is an ontology (a theory of being, of cause and effect, of constitutivity) that argues for the significance of all social and natural processes in the determination of all other social and natural processes. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger is constituted, as a unique human being, by all his experiences and all the experiences that preceded him and all the social and natural processes coincident with all those experiences (which shaped those experiences and therefore shaped Arnie). Overdetermination was first used in a social scientific context by Freud. www.mtholyoke.edu /courses/sgabriel/overdetermination.htm   (317 words)

For Marx I am not particularly taken by this term overdetermination (borrowed from other disciplines), but I shall use it in the absence of anything better, both as an index and as a problem, and also because it enables us to see clearly why we are dealing with something quite different from the Hegelian contradiction. However, it can be shown that this complexity is not the complexity of an effective overdetermination, but the complexity of a cumulative internalisation which is only apparently an overdetermination. It seems to me that this clarifies the expression overdetermined contradiction, which I have put forward, this specifically because the existence of overdetermination is no longer a fact pure and simple, for in its essentials we have related it to its bases, even if our exposition has so far been merely gestural. phoenixandturtle.net /excerptmill/althusser2.htm   (5690 words)

Contradiction and Overdetermination - Louis Althusser (1962) So all Rome’s complexity fails to overdetermine the contradiction in the simple Roman principle, which is merely the internal essence of this infinite historical wealth. The exception thus discovers in itself the rule, the rule of the rule, and the old ‘exceptions’ must be regarded as methodologically simple examples of the new rule. This overdetermination is inevitable and thinkable as soon as the real existence of the forms of the superstructure and of the national and international conjuncture has been recognised — an existence largely specific and autonomous, and therefore irreducible to a pure phenomenon. evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com /althusser.htm   (5783 words)

REDUCTIONISM AND OVERDETERMINATION IN THE EXPLANATION OF HUMAN NATURE My purpose here is not to denigrate the animal or biological or evolutionary, much less the sexual, but to point to the efforts made by some to make those explanations colonise and dominate the territory of social and moral and political and ideological explanations. I think Victor Wolfenstein achieves this balanced overdetermination without succumbing to reductionism at the theoretical level in his Psychoanalytic-Marxism and at the level of the case study in his biography of Malcolm X, The Victims of Democracy, but these are rare achievements, requiring profound research and insight. The danger of being overwhelmed by overdetermination is what I think has led us to the cynicism of some forms of postmodernism. human-nature.com /rmyoung/papers/paper39h.html   (6502 words)

Overdetermination and Chance (via CobWeb/3.1 planetlab2.cs.unc.edu)   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07) Overdetermination is first used when Freud is grappling with theories of hysteria and the significance of psychical causes versus organic determinants. Eventually Freud uses "overdetermined" interchangeably with "unconscious" since any manifest formation, such as a symptom, would be said to have always had latent determinants, if not manifest ones too. Quite clearly, Smith and Kerrigan’s claim regarding the co-implication of overdetermination and chance is contradicted by Freud’s insistence on both overdetermination and determinism being characteristics of the psyche. www.eric.anders.net.cob-web.org:8888 /dissertation/overdetermination.html   (2278 words)

essay: Overdetermination and a Responsibility to Act Specifically, I would like to address the overdetermination of gender and why we should all act responsibly to change the current division of the sexes. There are many things that we may disagree with in the world, but as the theory of overdetermination shows, we will inevitably affect these things in some way. If you believe this theory, if you see that every choice you make and every little thing you do affects something larger, that everything in existence is caused by everyone involved in it, then you will see that you have a responsibility to make all decisions with the weight of the world on your shoulders. www.mtholyoke.edu /courses/sgabriel/filmcourse/forum/messages/447.shtml   (2710 words)

Riffaterre - Text Derivation Overdetermination may be defined as the rule by which signifiers refer not to their signifieds, but rather, to each other, thereby organizing a system of significations that gives the reader the impression that the sentence he is reading is derived from a hypogram. A process associated with reading, overdetermination takes place when the reader detects recurring elements in the text, both on the semantic and the structural levels. In other words, through its reference to the hypogram, the text is severed from its mimetic meaning; overdetermination is what compensates for this effect, and because of it, "discourse seems to have its own imperative truth" (1978, 21). www.uqar.qc.ca /signo/riffaterre/a_generation.asp   (1915 words)

Overdetermination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Another conception of overdetermination is present in the later writings of Jean Baudrillard. A system of linear equations is considered overdetermined if there are more equations than unknowns. "Contradiction and Overdetermination." In For Marx Verso 1985 ISBN 0-902308-79-3 en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Overdetermination   (464 words)

Cybernetics and Rhetoric: Freshman English in An Overdetermined World   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07) SOME English teachers and administrators respond to words such as “cybernetics” and “overdetermination” as if they represented all the evil advances that communications programs have made, often at the expense of traditional English programs, over the past few decades. Cybernetics and the concepts of overdetermination, as Coe suggests, can help us find integrative, process-oriented methods of teaching and learning precisely because they begin with a consideration of the whole problem—as impossible as that may seem to many who have struggled with freshman programs during the past few years. Overdetermination, the idea that a situation or subject cannot be explained by a single series of logical steps, that many potential causes may integrate to determine a result, can work side-by-side with linear, cause-and-effect analysis to explain and solve problems in communication, including those involved in freshman English. www.mla.org /ade/bulletin/N046/046022.htm   (6105 words)

Maverick Philosopher Causal Overdetermination and the Existence of the Universe So a theist who is a regularity theorist could hold that while every state of the universe has a causal explanation in terms of earlier events, the existence of these states and thus of the universe is explained by God’s creative activity. There is no causal overdetermination here since although God is a cause of existence, Humean causes are not causes of existence. Thus if Smith is to make good his claim that a self-explanatory universe excludes an external cause, he must specify a theory of natural causation according to which causes bring into existence their effects. maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com /posts/1152660287.shtml   (1633 words)

[No title]   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07) Finally, in section 4, I examine the relationship between epistemic overdetermination and defeasible justification, and articulate its bearing on the existence of a priori knowledge. The first type of epistemic overdetermination occurs when we have more than one justification for a particular belief, and each of them comes from the same source. The second type of epistemic overdetermination occurs when we have more than one justification for a particular belief, and at least some of them come from different sources. www.unl.edu /philosop/people/faculty/casullo/overdtrmn.htm   (6423 words)

JEI Volume 32, December 1998 Overdetermination, Totality, and Institutions: A Genealogy of a Marxist Institutionalist Economics, Cullenberg, Stephen, 801-815. Overdetermination, Totality, and Institutions: A Genealogy of a Marxist Institutionalist Economics. Overdetermination is considered as a possible method for institutionalist economics. www.orgs.bucknell.edu /afee/jei/jei9912.htm   (1557 words)

Overdetermination That is because, in that situation, the context is highly overdetermined. But, it is important to note, the same process of the overdetermination of meaning takes place in all contexts. In fact, the tendency to establish (articulate) certain meanings in certain ways can be viewed as one of the ways of defining or delimiting the notion of 'context' itself. freespace.virgin.net /jp.bowman/postmarxism/page_07.htm   (311 words)

My Research In particular, I consider what is required for the multiple realizability of psychological kinds, the relevance of multiple realizability to the reducibility and autonomy of psychology, as well as further refinements of the concept that would prove helpful. While all alleged cases of overdetermination might (or might not) be problematic, I aim to show that they are so for different reasons. Examples of causal overdetermination neatly divide into three varieties, corresponding to the connections between the mechanisms and the properties of the causes. comp.uark.edu /~efunkho/myphilosophy.html   (1146 words)

ricardou   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07) Nothing, one day, seemed more imperative to me than the project of composing a book whose fiction would be constructed not as the representation of some preexistent entity, real or imaginary, but rather on the basis of certain specific mechanisms of generation and selection. In this perspective, each element is invested with a coefficient of overdetermination. If there is a choice to be made between two overdetermined elements, the one with the highest coefficient of overdetermination will always be chosen. www.uchicago.edu /research/jnl-crit-inq/issues/v4/v4n2.ricardou.html   (338 words)

A CAGE WENT IN SEARCH... In psychoanalysis, overdetermination 'gives expression to more than one need or desire' (OED), it is the condensation of the conscious and the unconscious wish resulting in the encryption of the symptom. And needless to say, the symptom qua overdetermination is highly relevant to all literary practices and paradigms of interpretation because it fascinates and compels the spectator/subject: Strong enough both to necessitate and bypass repression, the symptom articulates both a desire and its prohibition. Since overdetermination is comparable to the signifying mechanism operative in neurotic symptom formation, one is tempted to expect a way of encryption in the formation also of psychotic delusion. www.lacan.com /cage.htm   (2108 words)

E.G.: Overdetermination. (via CobWeb/3.1 planetlab2.cs.unc.edu)   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07) So even if, in each such case, it is highly unlikely for overdetermination to occur, the fact that there have been so many such cases makes it fairly reasonable to suppose that overdetermination has occurred at least once. If I accept the view that overdetermination is not "widespread," I should think that there is a good chance that one theory is correct, and a good chance that the other theory is correct, but not very much chance that both theories are correct. Perhaps overdetermination happens all the time; perhaps it is extremely easy to find cases of overdetermination, if you know where to look. eg.typepad.com.cob-web.org:8888 /eg/2005/03/overdeterminati.html   (1220 words)

Althusser (by L. Proyect) Neither do I have patience for much of his rather abstruse language, or for the neologisms like "overdetermination" that appear there. I do have a favorable reaction, however, to things Althusser was saying in the 1962 article "Contradiction and Overdetermination". Basically this article is a call to arms against economic determinism, a bane of Marxism throughout the 20th century. www.columbia.edu /~lnp3/mydocs/modernism/althusser.htm   (599 words)

[No title] Overdetermination: Marxian theory is overdetermined in that it assumes a series of processes in society that all effect (not affect) one another. “Each process in society is understood as overdetermined by all the others, as the site constituted by their interaction (5).” The various processes (economic, political, cultural, natural — as broad categories) are mutually constituted rather than caused. “ observation is not theory-neutral [but instead] participates, via overdetermination, in determining both the thing that is observed and the process of theory itself (9).” Rationalism (opposing the empiricists) holds that the essence of reality is not observable but accessible only by reason. www.vermontel.net /~hancockp/CESNotes.doc   (5225 words)

Do Causal Powers Drain Away   The overdetermination approach says that in such a world, the mental cause causes a physical event—namely that the principle of causal closure of the physical domain does not hold.” (45)  He adds, uncontroversially, that the failure of causal closure is not an acceptable conclusion. Problem 1: Kim supposes that on the overdetermination view, a world in which the physical cause does not occur and which in other respects is as much like our world as possible is a world in which the mental cause does nonetheless occur. If we are to stipulate cross-world identification of token events, it would be natural for non-reductivists to resist the idea that a world in which the molecules are different is a world in which that strangling does not exist, but is rather replaced by a different strangling. www.nyu.edu /gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/CausalPowers.htm   (7154 words)

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