Ideas from 'From Supervenience to Superdupervenience' by Terence Horgan [1993], by Theme Structure
[found in 'Mind' (ed/tr -) [- ,]].
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7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / b. Types of supervenience
16052
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'Superdupervenience' is supervenience that has a robustly materialistic explanation
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Full Idea:
The idea of a ontological supervenience that is robustly explainable in a materialistically explainable way I hereby dub 'superdupervenience'.
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From:
Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §4)
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A reaction:
[He credits William Lycan with the actual word] His assumption prior to this introduction is that mere supervenience just adds a new mystery. I take supervenience to be an observation of 'tracking', which presumably needs to be explained.
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16053
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'Global' supervenience is facts tracking varying physical facts in every possible world
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Full Idea:
The idea of 'global supervenience' is standardly expressed as 'there are no two physically possible worlds which are exactly alike in all physical respects but different in some other respect'.
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From:
Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §5)
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A reaction:
[Jaegwon Kim is the source of this concept] The 'local' view will be that they do indeed track, but they could, in principle, come apart. A zombie might be a case of them possibly coming apart. Zombies are silly.
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7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
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Don't just observe supervenience - explain it!
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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.
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From:
Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §8)
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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.
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7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
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Physicalism needs more than global supervenience on the physical
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Full Idea:
Global supervenience seems too weak to capture the physical facts determining all the facts. …There could be two spatio-temporal regions alike in all physical respects, but different in some intrinsic non-physical respect.
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From:
Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §5)
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A reaction:
I.e. there might be two physically identical regions, but one contains angels and the other doesn't (so the extra fact isn't tracking the physical facts). Physicalism I take to be the simple denial of the angels. Supervenience is an explanandum.
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Materialism requires that physics be causally complete
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Full Idea:
Any broadly materialistic metaphysical position needs to claim that physics is causally complete.
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From:
Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §6)
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A reaction:
Since 'physics' is a human creation, I presume he means that physical reality is causally complete. The interaction problem that faced Descartes seems crucial - how could something utterly non-physical effect a physical change?
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14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 3. Instrumentalism
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Instrumentalism normally says some discourse is useful, but not genuinely true
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Full Idea:
Instrumentalist views typically attribute utility to the given body of discourse, but deny that it expresses genuine truths.
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From:
Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §8)
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A reaction:
To me it is obvious to ask why anything could have a high level of utility (especially in accounts of the external physical world) without being true. Falsehoods may sometimes (though I doubt it) be handy in human life, but useful in chemistry…?
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