More on Global Supervenience

Abstract

Jaegwon Kim contends that global supervenience is consistent with non-materialistic cases. Paull and Sider, Horgan, as well as Kim, attempt to defend it from these charges. It is shown here that their defense is only partially successful. Their defense meets one challenge to global supervenience-the hydrogen-atom case-but fails to meet other, 'local', cases. It is suggested that the other challenges can be met if global supervenience is combined with weak supervenience. The combination of global and weak supervenience constitutes a viable picture of psychophysical relations, and is especially attractive to nonreductive materialists who are also anti-individualists. Global supervenience is seen as an important version of non-reductive materialism. It is especially attractive to non-reductivists with anti-individualistic inclinations. But there are also worries that global supervenience falls short of establishing important aspects of a materialist picture of the mind. Jaegwon Kim,' for example, argues that there are non-materialist scenarios that are compatible with global supervenience. More recently, Paull and Sider2 and Terence Horgan3 attempt to defend global supervenience from these charges. I argue that their defense is only partially successful. It succeeds in meeting one challenge to global supervenience, but fails to meet others. I then suggest that global supervenience can be salvaged if it is combined with weak supervenience. The combination of global and weak supervenience, I argue, is a serious option for non-reductive materialists who are also antiindividualists.