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Single Idea 3431

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

Full Idea

Supervenience opens up the possibility of a relationship that gives us determination, or dependence, without reduction (as beauty supervenes on physical properties, but can't be given a physical definition).

Gist of Idea

Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty)

Source

Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.223)

Book Ref

Kim,Jaegwon: 'Philosophy of Mind' [Westview 1998], p.223

A Reaction

Beauty is a bad analogy, since it rather obviously involves a beholder. There is nothing more to a statue than a substance of a certain shape. There are no good analogies for this sort of supervenience, because it doesn't exist.

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

3644 Two things being joined together doesn't prove they are the same [Descartes]
16045 General facts supervene on particular facts, but cannot be inferred from them [Russell, by Bennett,K]
16051 Life has a new supervenient relation, which alters its underlying physical events [Morgan,L]
16050 The goodness of a picture supervenes on the picture; duplicates must be equally good [Hare]
3532 Solidity in a piston is integral to its structure, not supervenient [Maslin on Searle]
3533 Is supervenience just causality? [Searle, by Maslin]
3431 Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty) [Kim]
13745 Supervenience is not a dependence relation, on the lines of causal, mereological or semantic dependence [Kim]
13746 Supervenience is just a 'surface' relation of pattern covariation, which still needs deeper explanation [Kim]
4242 Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel]
8606 A supervenience thesis is a denial of independent variation [Lewis]
16056 Don't just observe supervenience - explain it! [Horgan,T]
4078 Constitution (as in a statue constituted by its marble) is supervenience without identity [Crane]
2398 Reduction requires logical supervenience [Chalmers]
3523 Shadows are supervenient on their objects, but not reducible [Maslin]
16061 If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
9500 If naturalism refers to supervenience, that leaves necessary entities untouched [Bird]
21664 Supervenience offers little explanation for things which necessarily go together [Hofweber]
17486 Supervenience is simply modally robust property co-variance [Hendry]
17322 Necessities supervene on everything, but don't depend on everything [Liggins]
16040 Aesthetics, morality and mind supervene on the physical? Modal on non-modal? General on particular? [Bennett,K]
16044 Some entailments do not involve supervenience, as when brotherhood entails siblinghood [Bennett,K]
16046 Reduction requires supervenience, but does supervenience suffice for reduction? [Bennett,K]