more from this thinker     |     more from this text


Single Idea 16056

[filed under theme 7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience ]

Full Idea

Although the task of explaining supervenience has been little appreciated and little discussed in the philosophical literature, it is time for that to change.

Gist of Idea

Don't just observe supervenience - explain it!

Source

Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §8)

Book Ref

-: 'Mind' [-], p.23


A Reaction

I would offer a strong addition to this: be absolutely sure that you are dealing with two distinct things in the supervenience relationship, before you waste time trying to explain how they relate to one another.

Related Idea

Idea 16052 'Superdupervenience' is supervenience that has a robustly materialistic explanation [Horgan,T]


The 23 ideas with the same theme [what should be inferred from a supervenience]:

Two things being joined together doesn't prove they are the same [Descartes]
General facts supervene on particular facts, but cannot be inferred from them [Russell, by Bennett,K]
Life has a new supervenient relation, which alters its underlying physical events [Morgan,L]
The goodness of a picture supervenes on the picture; duplicates must be equally good [Hare]
Solidity in a piston is integral to its structure, not supervenient [Maslin on Searle]
Is supervenience just causality? [Searle, by Maslin]
Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty) [Kim]
Supervenience is not a dependence relation, on the lines of causal, mereological or semantic dependence [Kim]
Supervenience is just a 'surface' relation of pattern covariation, which still needs deeper explanation [Kim]
Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel]
A supervenience thesis is a denial of independent variation [Lewis]
Don't just observe supervenience - explain it! [Horgan,T]
Constitution (as in a statue constituted by its marble) is supervenience without identity [Crane]
Reduction requires logical supervenience [Chalmers]
Shadows are supervenient on their objects, but not reducible [Maslin]
If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
If naturalism refers to supervenience, that leaves necessary entities untouched [Bird]
Supervenience offers little explanation for things which necessarily go together [Hofweber]
Supervenience is simply modally robust property co-variance [Hendry]
Necessities supervene on everything, but don't depend on everything [Liggins]
Aesthetics, morality and mind supervene on the physical? Modal on non-modal? General on particular? [Bennett,K]
Some entailments do not involve supervenience, as when brotherhood entails siblinghood [Bennett,K]
Reduction requires supervenience, but does supervenience suffice for reduction? [Bennett,K]