SUPERVENIENCE, DETERMINATION, AND DEPENDENCE

Author: YOSHIMI, JEFFREY

Source: Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 88, Number 1, March 2007 , pp. 114-133(20)

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Abstract:

I show how existing concepts of supervenience relate to two more fundamental ontological relations: determination and dependence. Determination says that the supervenient properties of a thing are a function of its base properties, while dependence says that having a supervenient property implies having a base property. I show that most varieties of supervenience are either determination relations or determination relations conjoined with dependence relations. In the process of unpacking these connections I identify limitations of existing concepts of supervenience and provide ways of overcoming them. What results is a more precise, flexible, and powerful set of tools for relating sets of properties than current concepts of supervenience provide. I apply these tools to a recalcitrant problem in the physicalism literature - the problem of extras.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0114.2007.00283.x

Affiliations: 1: School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts University of California, Merced

Publication date: 2007-03-01