Causal Powers, Forces, and Superdupervenience

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In this Subject: Philosophy
By this author: Jessica M. Wilson

Author: Jessica M. Wilson

Source: Grazer Philosophische Studien, Essays on the Philosophy of Terence Horgan. Edited by Johannes L. Brandl and Olga Markic , pp. 53-77(25)

Publisher: Rodopi

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Abstract:

Horgan (1993) proposed that "superdupervenience" - supervenience preserving physicalistic acceptability - is a matter of robust explanation. I argued against him (1999) that (as nearly all physicalist and emergentist accounts reflect) superdupervenience is a matter of Condition on Causal Powers (CCP): every causal power bestowed by the supervenient property is identical with a causal power bestowed by its base property.Here Ishow that CCP is, as it stands, unsatisfactory,for on the usual understandings of causal power bestowal, it is trivially satisfied or falsified. I offer a revision of CCP which incorporates the evident fact that causal powers are grounded in fundamental forces.

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2002-06-01