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Single Idea 16041

[filed under theme 17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 5. Supervenience of mind ]

Full Idea

The supervenience [of mental characteristics on the physical] might be taken to mean that there cannot be two events alike in all physical respects but differing in some mental respect, or an object cannot differ mentally without altering physically.

Gist of Idea

Supervenience of the mental means physical changes mental, and mental changes physical

Source

Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970], I)

Book Ref

Davidson,Donald: 'Essays on Actions and Events' [OUP 1982], p.214


A Reaction

This is the first occasion on which Davidson introduced his notion of supervenience. Supervenience is often taken to be one-way. The first implies physical causing mental; his second implies that mental causes physical.


The 19 ideas with the same theme [total mapping of thoughts onto brain events]:

Even if tightly united, mind and body are different, as God could separate them [Descartes]
Identical objects must have identical value [Ross]
Supervenience of the mental means physical changes mental, and mental changes physical [Davidson]
If mind-brain supervenience isn't causal, this implies epiphenomenalism [Searle]
Mental events can cause even though supervenient, like the solidity of a piston [Searle]
Upwards mental causation makes 'supervenience' irrelevant [Searle]
Mind and brain are supervenient in respect of cause and effect [Searle]
Non-Reductive Physicalism relies on supervenience [Kim]
Maybe strong supervenience implies reduction [Kim]
Supervenience says all souls are identical, being physically indiscernible [Kim]
Zombies and inversion suggest non-reducible supervenience [Kim]
Epiphenomenalism is supervenience without physicalism [Papineau]
Supervenience requires all mental events to have physical effects [Papineau]
Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor]
Supervenience can be replaced by identifying mind with higher-order or disjunctional properties [Papineau]
If mental supervenes on the physical, then every physical cause will be accompanied by a mental one [Crane]
Zombies imply natural but not logical supervenience [Chalmers]
If mind supervenes on the physical, it may also explain the physical (and not vice versa) [Fine,K]
Supervenience of mental and physical properties often comes with token-identity of mental and physical particulars [Rowlands]