Will and Epiphenomenalism

Epiphenomenalism holds that mental phenomena are no more than signs of physiological processes, and, therefore, exercise no causal efficacy with respect to them. It follows from such a thesis that Will is either a non-mental or a non-causal process. However, the doctrine is based on three arbitrary premises--that all Causality is of the Efficient variety, that the function of Mind is exclusively representational, and that Mind and Body are fundamentally separated. Thus, it arbitrarily precludes that Will effects Material Causality; that Will, as distinguished from Consciousness, is a non-representational process, originating in Mind, of setting an organism in motion; and that Will is a transition from mentality to physicality. Hence, despite the ambitions of Epiphenomenalism, Will is neither non-mental nor non-causal.