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Supervenience and causation

a probabilistic approach

Sungsu Kim

pp. 245-259

Abstract

It is often argued that if a mentalproperty supervenes on a physical property, then (1)the mental property M ``inherits'' its causal efficacyfrom the physical property P and (2) the causalefficacy of M reduces to that of P. However, once weunderstand the supervenience thesis and the concept ofcausation probabilistically, it turns out that we caninfer the causal efficacy of M from that of P andvice versa if and only if a certain condition, whichI call the ``line-up'' thesis, holds. I argue that thesupervenience thesis entails neither this conditionnor its denial. I also argue that even when theline-up thesis holds true, reductionism about thecausal efficacy of the mental property doesn'tfollow.

Publication details

Published in:

(2000) Synthese 122 (3).

Pages: 245-259

DOI: 10.1023/A:1005282128866

Full citation:

Kim Sungsu (2000) „Supervenience and causation: a probabilistic approach“. Synthese 122 (3), 245–259.