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On the Relevance of Supervenience Theses to Physicalism

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Abstract

This paper is an investigation into the nature of physicalism as well as to the possibility of formulating physicalism as a supervenience thesis. First, I review the motivation for finding a supervenience thesis that characterizes physicalism. Second, I briefly survey the types of supervenience theses that have been proposed as necessary (or, in some cases, as necessary and sufficient) for physicalism. Third, I analyze the recent supervenience thesis proposed by Frank Jackson and expounded upon by Gene Witmer. Jackson claims the supervenience thesis is both necessary and sufficient for physicalism; Witmer has proposed a different interpretation of one of the Jackson’s key notions and has suggested an amended supervenience thesis that is, if not sufficient, at least necessary for physicalism. However, I will argue that neither Jackson’s nor Witmer’s supervenience theses as stated are necessary for physicalism.

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Notes

  1. Horgan (1993)

  2. Kim (1993)

  3. Most prominently, I am thinking of Paull and Sider (1992), Stalnaker (1996), Jackson (1998), and Witmer (1999)

  4. McLaughlin (1995, 17)

  5. Those who think reduction is essentially an explanatory relation will surely reply, appropriately given their assumption, that a supervenience thesis could not support reduction. But, as McLaughlin (1995, 46-48) observes, there is no received view of reduction, and it is not at all clear that reduction is an explanatory relation. Perhaps ontological reduction is, but epistemic reduction does not seem to be an explanatory relation.

  6. Lewis (1986a, ix – x)

  7. Jackson (1998, 9)

  8. See Papineau (1993), Loewer (1995)

  9. See Kim (1984). Kim notes that it the B-property that the A-property in question is coextensive with may be some infinitary disjunction

  10. See, for instance, McLaughlin (1995, 47)

  11. The fear of reduction itself is probably driven by a strong belief on behalf of many philosophers that the qualitative nature of our experience cannot possibly be reduced to physical properties, and thus if we want to preserve the special character of this experience, we need to be non-reductive physicalists

  12. In fact, there may be a world that has the exact same physical nature of ours but which contains lots of ectoplasm, viz., nonphysical substances or properties. This suggests that the worlds over which Jackson wishes to quantify in his supervenience thesis is even more restrictive than the physically possible worlds. However, I will come back to this later in the essay.

  13. Jackson (1998, 12)

  14. Ibid. 23

  15. Ibid. 12

  16. Of course, this is only at the intuitive level. Actually, the class of MPD worlds probably matches the cardinality of the PP worlds and NP worlds in being infinite. Nonetheless, it does seem correct to say that if one selected a possible world at random, one would be less likely to land in an MPD of the actual world than in a PP world or an NP world.

  17. Jackson (1998, 13). (emphasis mine)

  18. Witmer (1999, 326)

  19. Kim (1984, 168)

  20. McLaughlin (1995, 32)

  21. Lewis (1986b)

  22. Sider (1999, 916). In an earlier article, R. Cranston Paull and Sider (1992, 852) provided this somewhat more complicated version of world indiscernibility:

    Let w and z be possible worlds, D(w) and D(z) be the set of objects existing at w and z, respectively, and B be a nonempty set of properties…

    w and z are B-indiscernible = df there is a bijection Γ from D(w) onto D(z) such that for any x that is a member of D(w) and time t, Γ(x) has the same position and the same B-properties at t as does x (at t)

    where Γ is just a one-to-one function mapping the objects from D(w) onto objects in D(z). Brian McLaughlin (1995, 33), however, pointed out that on this definition of indiscernibility, since Γ(x) will always have the same spatiotemporal properties at x (at a given time), spatiotemporal properties will globally supervene on any set B of properties whatsoever, and that one might want to avoid this result. I take it that Sider’s incorporation of the idea of an isomorphism within this new definition of indiscernibility is indeed an attempt to avoid this result

  23. A property counts as a 1-place relation for the purposes of this definition

  24. The use of the term ‘counterpart’ here should not be taken as an implicit commitment to Lewis’s theory of counterparts and world-bound individuals. As it so happens, Sider does adhere to such a view (or at least he assumes such a view for the purposes of his paper), but this definition could still work if one held to a theory of transworld identity where it is in fact the same object from world to worlds

  25. This understanding of a duplicate simpliciter, I should note, does not commit us to the idea that a duplicate simpliciter of, say, our world is identical to our world. This is because there may be different de se facts in the duplicate simpliciter of our world than there are in our world, or, if counterpart theory is true, the duplicate simpliciter of our world will contain a counterpart of me, which is not identical to me. However, we can be sure that at least all of the de dicto facts of our world are duplicated in a duplicate simpliciter of our world.

  26. Witmer (1999, 326)

  27. The intuitive notion of an MPD was, as you may recall, that to get a MPD of a world, one duplicate all the physical stuff of the world and stop right there—one duplicates no more and no less than the physical stuff

  28. Witmer (1999, 327)

  29. Ibid. 327

  30. Note that if we do interpret (M3) along the lines of Weak Indiscernibility, then it is crucial that there be an extra property in WMPD* and not just that there be a different individual instantiating the property of “being the happiest entity.” If it were only the latter, there could still be a “happiness property”-isomorphism from the domain of WMPD onto the domain of WMPD* This could be accomplished as follows: Let x be the object in the actual world instantiating the property Q: “being the happiest entity in existence”—x will also instantiate that property in WMPD but the aforementioned random television will not. Now, in WMPD* if the television instantiates Q and x fails to be happy at all, then there can still be a B-isomorphism from in WMPD to WMPD* that preserves the required property distribution

  31. Actually, it is property instances that Witmer takes to be either fragile or resilient

  32. Witmer (1999, 238)

  33. Loewer (2001, 39)

  34. This feature will come “in the way of particulars, laws, or instantiated properties and relations,” according to Jackson (1998, 14).

  35. Loewer (2001, 39)

  36. This example is inspired by one discussed in Sider (1999)

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Correspondence to Warren Shrader.

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Shrader, W. On the Relevance of Supervenience Theses to Physicalism. Acta Anal 23, 257–271 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-008-0035-z

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