We think that certain of our mental states represent the world around us, and represent it in determinate ways. My perception that there is salt in the pot before me, for example, represents my immediate environment as containing a certain object, a pot, with a certain kind of substance, salt, in it. My belief that salt dissolves in water represents something in the world around me, namely salt, as having a certain observational property, that of dissolving. But what exactly is (...) the relation between such states and the world beyond the surfaces of our skins? Specifically, what exactly is the relation between thecontentsof those states, and the world beyond our bodies? (shrink)

The paper analyses the main trends in the discussions about the notion of supervenience in the last decades, putting the emphasis in some crucial problems. The starting point will be the various concepts of supervenience proposed by Jaegwon Kim. Through them, we will identify a dramatic tension between the extremes of eliminativism and dualism (in general, pluralism), being placed in the middle of them the positions of a non-eliminativist reductionism and of a non-dualist epiphenomenism. The open options facing that tension (...) show a very peculiar and valuable sort of philosophical work which could be called “conceptual engineering”. (shrink)

The present essay aims at broadening the recent discussion on the issue of holism vs. particularism in quantum physics. I begin with a clarification of the relation between the holism/particularism debate and the discussion of supervenience relation. I then defend particularism in physics (including quantum physics) by considering a new classification of properties of physical systems. With such a classification, the results in the Bell theorem are shown to violate spatial separability but not physical particularism.

The aim of the paper is to show that claims of supervenience of the mental upon the physical do not define substantial forms of materialism. While weak supervenience holds trivially, even strong supervenience does not justify a claim of identity, dependence or determination; it is only a relation between classifications of persons by psychological and physical properties.

In the first part ("Determination"), I consider different notions of determination, contrast and compare modal with non-modal accounts and then defend two a-modality theses concerning essence and supervenience. I argue, first, that essence is a a-modal notion, i.e. not usefully analysed in terms of metaphysical modality, and then, contra Kit Fine, that essential properties can be exemplified contingently. I argue, second, that supervenience is also an a-modal notion, and that it should be analysed in terms of constitution relations between properties. (...) In the second part ("A Theory of Truthmaking"), I first review the literature on ontological commitment, and argue that the notion of truthmaking is better suited to play its explanatory rôle. I then argue that we should take truthmaker theory seriously, and that we should provide actual truthmakers for all truths there are. In the last chapter of this part, I review Armstrong's truthmaker theories and argue that they are unsatisfactory. I generalise my criticism to an argument against truthmaker necessitarianism, the view that truthmakers necessarily make true the truths they are truthmakers of. In the third part ("Properties and their Kind(s)"), I discuss qualitative determination. I present and endorse the truthmaker argument for universals, and defend universalism against friends of tropes, states of affairs and facts. I then give a novel characterisation of the important class of intrinsic properties, building on Lewis' work. With a workable notion of intrinsicness at hand, I argue that relations are ontologically – but not "ideologically" – dispensable: qualitative determination in general is a matter of intrinsic structure. In the future, I plan to add two parts and to publish my thesis as a book: In the fourth part ("Exemplification"), I argue for the existence of an exemplification relation tying universals and particulars together. I derive theoretical benefits from this relation by providing adverbialist theories of modality and tense and identify exemplification with a type of parthood. In the fifth part ("Qua qua qua"), I investigate the curious and interesting ontological category of so-called "qua-objects" (Picasso-as-a-painter, for example) and argue that they exist, are not identical with transworld indidivuals or modal parts and that they provide (contingent) truthmakers for all true predications. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of attempts to reconstruct Marxian theory in forms that can be assessed by reference to currently received standards in various disciplines. The work has even been said to establish a new paradigm: “analytical Marxism.” One doesn't have to endorse this claim to recognize a good deal of merit in the work. Through creative application of state-of-the-art methods to traditional Marxian issues, researchers have promoted productive cross-fertilization with non-Marxian programs and have revealed many problems (...) that must be resolved for fruitful development of Marxian theory. Marx's work can be relevant to today's problems only if it is examined from vantage points provided by subsequent scientific and philosophical achievements. Moreover, critical engagement with the best science of the day has been an essential part of the Marxian theoretical project from the beginning. (shrink)

2020 update of the entry "Properties".

For three decades the writings of Jaegwon Kim have had a major influence in philosophy of mind and in metaphysics. Sixteen of his philosophical papers, together with several new postscripts, are collected in Kim [1993]. The publication of this collection prompts the present essay. After some preliminary remarks in the opening section, in Section 2 I will briefly describe Kim's philosophical 'big picture' about the relation between the mental and the physical. In Section 3 I will situate Kim's approach on (...) the larger philosophical landscape, vis-à-vis various other approaches frequently discussed in contemporary philosophy of mind. This comparative discussion will further illuminate Kim's own position, and also will serve as groundwork for subsequent discussion. In Section 4 I will point out certain persistent internal tensions in Kim's philosophical position on the mind--body problem, tensions that emerge especially clearly against the backdrop of Section 3's comparative discussion of Kim's position relative to various competing positions. In the remainder of the paper I will focus on two issues at the heart of his position, with particular attention to what he says about them in some of the more recent papers and the postscripts in Kim [1993]. First, how should a materialist understand the notion that the mental is 'determined' by the physical? More specifically, what role, if any, should be played by the concept of supervenience in explicating this kind of determination relation? Kim's views on this matter have recently changed, and I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his own latest remarks on it. This is the business of Section 5. Second, need a viable materialism assert that mentalistic psychology is reducible to neurobiology (and ultimately to physics)? More specifically, should a materialist insist on reducibility, despite the currently influential line of argument used by non-reductive materialists, the 'multiple realization' argument? On this matter too, Kim's views have changed somewhat; again, I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his recent thinking. This is the business of Section 6. (shrink)

For three decades the writings of Jaegwon Kim have had a major influence in philosophy of mind and in metaphysics. Sixteen of his philosophical papers, together with several new postscripts, are collected in Kim [1993]. The publication of this collection prompts the present essay. After some preliminary remarks in the opening section, in Section 2 I will briefly describe Kim's philosophical 'big picture' about the relation between the mental and the physical. In Section 3 I will situate Kim's approach on (...) the larger philosophical landscape, vis-à-vis various other approaches frequently discussed in contemporary philosophy of mind. This comparative discussion will further illuminate Kim's own position, and also will serve as groundwork for subsequent discussion. In Section 4 I will point out certain persistent internal tensions in Kim's philosophical position on the mind--body problem, tensions that emerge especially clearly against the backdrop of Section 3's comparative discussion of Kim's position relative to various competing positions. In the remainder of the paper I will focus on two issues at the heart of his position, with particular attention to what he says about them in some of the more recent papers and the postscripts in Kim [1993]. First, how should a materialist understand the notion that the mental is 'determined' by the physical? More specifically, what role, if any, should be played by the concept of supervenience in explicating this kind of determination relation? Kim's views on this matter have recently changed, and I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his own latest remarks on it. This is the business of Section 5. Second, need a viable materialism assert that mentalistic psychology is reducible to neurobiology (and ultimately to physics)? More specifically, should a materialist insist on reducibility, despite the currently influential line of argument used by non-reductive materialists, the 'multiple realization' argument? On this matter too, Kim's views have changed somewhat; again, I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his recent thinking. This is the business of Section 6. (shrink)

How should the metaphysical hypothesis of materialism be formulated? What strategies look promising for defending this hypothesis? How good are the prospects for its successful defense, especially in light of the infamous "hard problem" of phenomenal consciousness? I will say something about each of these questions.

The aim of this paper is to define a notion of supervenience which can adequately describe the systematic dependence of extrinsic as well as of intrinsic higher-level properties on base-level features. We argue that none of the standard notions of supervenience—the concepts of weak, strong and global supervenience—fulfil this function. The concept of regional supervenience, which is purported to improve on the standard conceptions, turns out to be problematic as well. As a new approach, we develop the notion of property-dependent (...) supervenience. This notion is founded on a criterion of relevance adapting the supervenience base to the considered higher-level properties in a specific way, such that only features which are relevant to the instantiation of the higher-level properties under consideration are taken into account. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic account of the metaphysically important distinction between haecceitistic properties, such as being David Lewis or being acquainted with David Lewis, and qualitative properties, such as being red or being acquainted with a famous philosopher. I first argue that this distinction is hyperintensional, that is, that cointensional properties can differ in whether they are qualitative. Then I develop an analysis of the qualitative/haecceitistic distinction according to which haecceitistic properties are relational in (...) a certain sense. I argue that this analysis can capture the hyperintensionality of the qualitative/haecceitistic distinction and is generally in accordance with the use of the notion of a qualitative property in philosophical debates. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The exclusion problem is meant to show that non-reductive physicalism leads to epiphenomenalism: if mental properties are not identical with physical properties, then they are not causally efficacious. Defenders of a difference-making account of causation suggest that the exclusion problem can be solved because mental properties can be difference-making causes of physical effects. Here, we focus on what we dub an incompatibilist implementation of this general strategy and argue against it from a non-reductive physicalist perspective. Specifically, we argue that (...) incompatibilism undermines either the non-reductionist or the physicalist aspirations of non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

The paper discusses Noordhof' point on emergence, by arguing against an emergentist view of properties.

Inspired by the supervenience-determined consequence relation and the semantics of agreement operator, we introduce a modal logic of supervenience, which has a dyadic operator of supervenience as a sole modality. The semantics of supervenience modality very naturally correspond to the supervenience-determined consequence relation, in a quite similar way that the strict implication corresponds to the inference-determined consequence relation. We show that this new logic is more expressive than the modal logic of agreement, by proposing a notion of bisimulation for the (...) latter. We provide a sound proof system for the new logic. We lift onto more general logics of supervenience. Related to this, we address an interesting open research direction listed in the literature, by comparing propositional logic of determinacy and noncontingency logic in expressive powers and axiomatizing propositional logic of determinacy over various classes of frames. We also obtain an alternative axiomatization for propositional logic of determinacy over universal models. (shrink)

This article explores two consequences of intentionalism. My first line of argument focuses on the impact of intentionalism on the 'hard problem' of phenomenal character. If intentionalism is true, the phenomenal supervenes on the intentional. Furthermore, if physicalism about the intentional is also true, the intentional supervenes on the physical. Therefore, if intentionalism and physicalism are both true, then, by transitivity of supervenience, physicalism about the phenomenal is true. I argue that this transitivity argument is not persuasive, because on any (...) interpretation of its central terms, at least one of its premises is as controversial as its conclusion already is. My second line of argument is about the consequences of intentionalism for the error theory of color perception. I suggest that if intentionalism is true, projectivism must be true also, because under this condition there is no single concept of color that can be used for the qualification of objects as well as for the characterization of experiences. (shrink)

This paper introduces a modal epistemology that centers on inference to the best explanation (i.e. abduction). In introducing this abduction-centered modal epistemology, the paper has two main goals. First, it seeks to provide reasons for pursuing an abduction-centered modal epistemology by showing that this epistemology aids a popular stance on the mind-body problem and allows an appealing approach to modality. Second, the paper seeks to show that an abduction-centered modal epistemology can work by showing that abduction can establish claims about (...) necessity/possibility (i.e. modal claims)—where ‘necessity’ and ‘possibility’ denote metaphysical necessity and possibility, ways things may or may not have been given how they actually are. (shrink)

This is one of two papers about emergence, reduction and supervenience. It expounds these notions and analyses the general relations between them. The companion paper analyses the situation in physics, especially limiting relations between physical theories. I shall take emergence as behaviour that is novel and robust relative to some comparison class. I shall take reduction as deduction using appropriate auxiliary definitions. And I shall take supervenience as a weakening of reduction, viz. to allow infinitely long definitions. The overall claim (...) of this paper will be that emergence is logically independent both of reduction and of supervenience. In particular, one can have emergence with reduction, as well as without it; and emergence without supervenience, as well as with it. Of the subsidiary claims, the four main ones are: : I defend the traditional Nagelian conception of reduction ; : I deny that the multiple realizability argument causes trouble for reductions, or ``reductionism'' ; : I stress the collapse of supervenience into deduction via Beth's theorem ; : I adapt some examples already in the literature to show supervenience without emergence and vice versa. (shrink)

This chapter begins with a putative puzzle between non-reductive physicalism according to which psychological properties are distinct from, yet metaphysically necessitated by, physical properties, and Hume's dictum according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. However, the puzzle dissolves once care is taken to distinguish between distinct kinds of distinction: numerical distinctness, mereological distinctness, and what the chapter calls ‘weak modal distinctness’ and ‘strong modal distinctness’. For each of these notions, it turns out that either it makes (...) no sense according to non-reductive physicalism or else it is unclear whether Hume's dictum is true. The chapter then deploys these distinctions to argue first that unlike the dualist, the non-reductive physicalist can reject the exclusion principle in the causal exclusion argument, and second that emergentism can be distinguished from non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

Two versions of global supervenience have recently been distinguished from each other. I introduce a third version, which is more likely what people had in mind all along. However, I argue that one of the three versions is equivalent to strong supervenience in every sense that matters, and that neither of the other two versions counts as a genuine determination relation. I conclude that global supervenience has little metaphysically distinctive value.

To date, there is no universal and coherent theory concerning the nature or the function of time. Furthermore, important and unresolved controversies raging within both philosophy and the natural sciences apparently indicate that there is little hope of constructing a single, unified theory. Even so-called "folk" theories of time, embedded within different cultural traditions, show no common elements, and therefore can not provide a pre-theoretical description of time, towards which an explanatory framework could be constructed. This lack of consensus indicates (...) that the concept as it is currently being used is ill defined, and, at the very least, needs to be considerably revised. The conceptual disarray surrounding time has aided and abetted the arguments of certain thinkers, especially Ricoeur, working within the phenomenological tradition who make de principe claims that there can not be a single theory of time. My intention is not to try and to produce a concept of time that was capable of unifying all these different elements. Rather, Ricoeur's arguments and those of others working in the phenomenological tradition dissatisfied me. I believed that their arguments were informed by a myopic, muddled and positively 19th Century understanding of the scientific project. Hence, my aim is to show that Ricoeur's claim will not stand up to scrutiny, and that there are no principled arguments against the possibility of a unified theory of time. We examine the major arguments against unification in general, and also with particular reference to theories of time, such as Husserlian phenomenology, conventionalism, instrumentalism, anti-reductive positions in general, as well as the specific problem of reducing subjective experience to objective description. We demonstrate that none of these objections constitutes a watertight a priori argument against a unified theory of time. Furthermore, we demonstrate that recent developments in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind have made such a unified theory a plausible goal. We argue that post-positivist philosophy of science, with its emphasis on research programmes, the co-evolution of theories and super-empirical rational support, opens the way for new types of evidence to be brought to bear on questions about time. Also, recent developments in the brain sciences mean that a neurologically plausible and fully naturalised analysis of our experience of time is being developed. Although much work in this direction has begun, we argue that it is fragmented, partly through the limitations of our current knowledge, but more particularly through an inadequate background of coherent philosophical thought. This has lead both philosophers and scientists to attempt grand metaphysical answers to muddled philosophical questions which threaten the progress which natural science and the philosophy of science have offered in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Token physicalism is often viewed as a modest and unproblematic physicalist commitment, as contrasted with type physicalism. This paper argues that the prevalence of functional individuation in biology creates serious problems for token physicalism, because the latter requires that biological entities can be individuated physically and without reference to biological functioning. After characterizing the main philosophical roles for token physicalism, I describe the distinctive uses of functional individuation in models of biological processes. I then introduce some requirements on token identity (...) claims that arise from a position on individuation and identity known as sortalism. An examination of biological examples shows that these sortalist requirements cannot be plausibly met due to differences between individuation by functional biological criteria and by physical criteria. Even without assuming sortalism, token physicalism faces the more basic problem of excluding functionally irrelevant detail from the individuation of biological tokens. I close by suggesting that the philosophical roles for token identity are better fulfilled by a notion of token composition, which promotes a hierarchical picture of individuality. (shrink)

Tim Crane's ‘Cosmic Hermeneutics vs. Emergence: The Challenge of the Explanatory Gap’ claims that non‐reductive physicalism must either close the explanatory gap, addressing the challenge famously posed by Levine's argument, or become identical to emergentism. Since no way to close the gap is available, the result is that there can be no interesting philosophical position intermediate between physicalism and emergentism. This chapter argues that if we look at the relation between physicalism and emergentism from the vantage point of reduction, Crane's (...) analysis is rather persuasive. However, if we switch from reduction to causality, its conclusions appear more disputable. In particular, if we shift from ‘novelty and explanation’ to ‘novelty and causality’ as key features of emergent properties, we may introduce a distinction between two kinds of emergentism (moderate and radical) based on their attitude towards the causal inheritance principle. If the causal inheritance principle is accepted (some versions of) moderate emergentism may be considered as non‐trivial forms of non‐reductive physicalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay has three goals. The first is to introduce the notion of fundamentality and to argue that physicalism can usefully be conceived of as a thesis about fundamentality. The second is to argue for the advantages of fundamentality physicalism over modal formulations and that fundamentality physicalism is what many who endorse modal formulations of physicalism had in mind all along. Third, I describe what I take to be the main obstacle for a fundamentality-oriented formulation of physicalism: ‘the problem (...) of abstracta’, which asks how physical can accommodate phenomena such as mathematics and universals, and which modal formulations do not face. I canvas three solutions: the inapt for ground solution, the concrete restriction, and the contingency restriction. (shrink)

Amidst the progress being made in the various (sub-)disciplines of the behavioural and brain sciences a somewhat neglected subject is the problem of how everything fits into one world and, derivatively, how the relation between different levels of discourse should be understood and to what extent different levels, domains, approaches, or disciplines are autonomous or dependent. In this paper I critically review the most recent proposals to specify the nature of interdiscourse relations, focusing on the concept of supervenience. Ideally supervenience (...) is a relation between different discourses which has all the advantages of reduction, but without its disadvantages. I apply the more abstract considerations to two concrete cases: schizophrenia and colour. Usually an interlevel or interdiscourse relation is seen as asymmetrical: the overlaying discourse depends on the underlying discourse (and not vice versa), where the out- or un-spoken assumption is that the ultimate underlying discourse is physical. Instead I argue that scientific categories referred to in interdiscourse relations are, ultimately, dependent on common sense categories and common sense normative criteria. It is the manifest categories and common sense ideas about what is reasonable and what is right that determine the relevant categorisations at the deeper, underlying levels. I suggest that the implications of this are not merely methodological or epistemological. (shrink)

Qualia--the "what it's like features" of minds--pose a great challenge to a materialist view of the world. The two strongest and most popular objections to materialism based on qualia are the Zombie Argument and the Knowledge Argument. The current dissertation defends materialism against these two popular arguments. ;I argue that if zombie worlds exist, then qualia cause no physical events--they're epiphenomenal$\sb{\rm p},$ or epiphenomenal with respect to the physical domain of our world. I argue, however, that there is good reason (...) to reject the view that qualia are epiphenomenal$\sb{\rm p},$ and thus that there is good reason to deny the existence of zombie worlds. In turn, I argue that the Knowledge Argument likewise requires the existence of zombie worlds, and thus that the Knowledge Argument should likewise be rejected. (shrink)

In this thesis, I argue that physicalism should be understood to be the view that mental properties are realized by physical properties. In doing this, I explore what the realization relation might be. Since realization is the relation that should help us formulate physicalism, I suggest that the theoretical role of realization consists in explaining some of the things that physicalists wish to explain. These are: How are mental properties metaphysically necessitated by physical properties? How are mental properties causally efficacious? (...) A theory of realization should provide resources for answering these questions. Having identified the theoretical role of realization, I discuss several theories of realization, but then focus on the subset view of realization. According to the subset view, a property P realizes a property Q if and only if the causal powers of Q are a proper subset of the causal powers of P. I argue that the realization relation as it is formulated by the subset view is a promising candidate to play the theoretical role that I want realization to play. I then investigate how this theoretical role is occupied. In doing so, I provide a general metaphysical framework that the defenders of the subset view can appeal to. This framework specifies in what ways properties are related to their causal powers. Discussing some problems that the subset view faces, I propose my own version of the subset view. I argue that a property P realizes a property Q if and only if the causal powers of Q are a proper subset of the causal powers of P, and P is more fundamental than Q. Thanks to the requirement that a realized property is less fundamental than its realizers, two things that the original version of the subset view cannot explain are guaranteed: first, fundamental properties are not realized; second, arbitrary conjunctions of properties do not realize their conjuncts. By showing how a theory of realization can help us explain some of the things that physicalists typically wish to explain, I also show that a non-reductive variety of physicalism does not face the problems that it is commonly thought to face. (shrink)

Discussion of the supervenience relation in the philosophical literature of recent years has become Byzantine in its intricacy and diversity. Subtle modulations of the basic concept have been tooled and retooled with increasing frequency, until supervenience has lost nearly all its original lustre as a simple and powerful tool for cracking open refractory philosophical problems. I present a conceptual model of the supervenience relation that captures all the important extant concepts without ignoring the complexities uncovered during work over the past (...) two decades. I test my analysis by applying it to the problem of defining physicalism, concluding that the thesis of physicalism is best captured by the conjunction of two supervenience relations. (shrink)