The Supervenience Argument Generalizes

Author: Bontly T.D.¹

Source: Philosophical Studies, Volume 109, Number 1, May 2002 , pp. 75-96(20)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

In his recent book, Jaegwon Kim argues that psychophysical supervenience without psychophysical reduction renders mental causation `unintelligible'. He also claims that, contrary to popular opinion, his argument against supervenient mental causation cannot be generalized so as to threaten the causal efficacy of other `higher-level' properties: e.g., the properties of special sciences like biology. In this paper, I argue that none of the considerations Kim advances are sufficient to keep the supervenience argument from generalizing to all higher-level properties, and that Kim's position in fact entails that only the properties of fundamental physical particles are causally efficacious.

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Department of Philosophy, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-2054, USA E-mail: bontly@uconnvm.uconn.edu

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