Ideas from 'Postscripts on supervenience' by Jaegwon Kim [1993], by Theme Structure

[found in 'Supervenience and Mind' by Kim,Jaegwon [CUP 1993,0-521-43996-5]].

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7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
Supervenience is not a dependence relation, on the lines of causal, mereological or semantic dependence
                        Full Idea: It is a mistake, or at least misleading, to think of supervenience itself as a special and distinctive type of dependence relation, alongside causal dependence, mereological dependence, semantic dependence, and others.
                        From: Jaegwon Kim (Postscripts on supervenience [1993], 2)
                        A reaction: The point, I take it, is that supervenience is something which requires explanation, rather than being a conclusion to the debate. Why are statues beautiful? Why do brains generate minds?
Supervenience is just a 'surface' relation of pattern covariation, which still needs deeper explanation
                        Full Idea: Supervenience itself is not an explanatory relation, not a 'deep' metaphysical relation; rather it is a 'surface' relation that reports a pattern of property covariation, suggesting the presence of an interesting dependency relation that might explain it.
                        From: Jaegwon Kim (Postscripts on supervenience [1993], 2)
                        A reaction: I think the underlying idea here is that supervenience appeals to the Humean view of physical laws as mere regularities, but it is no good for those who seek underlying mechanisms to explain the patterns and regularities. Humeans are wrong.