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Single Idea 3532

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

Full Idea

Searle's defence of causally efficacious supervenient mind won't work, because, unlike the mind, the solidity of a piston is not a distinct and separate phenomenon from its microstructure.

Gist of Idea

Solidity in a piston is integral to its structure, not supervenient

Source

comment on John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.V) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.6

Book Ref

Maslin,Keith: 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind' [Polity 2001], p.204

A Reaction

Searle struggles to find analogies for his position - and that, in my view, is highly significant in the philosophy of mind. If there is nothing else like your proposed theory, it is probably just human vainglory.

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]