Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Philosophers Index Abstract

The concept of "supervenience" is used to resolve three problems about causal relations involving mental events. These problems are:-

(1) the problem of pre-emption,
(2) the problem of spurious overdetermination, and
(3) the problem of spurious partial cause.

The relation of supervenience between families of properties or events is explained, and causal connections among supervenient events are explained in terms of the causal connections between the events on which they supervene. The thesis that mental events are supervenient upon physical events is formulated, and defended, in part on the model of the global supervenience of macro-properties and processes on their micro-counterparts. Similarities and differences between the supervenience thesis concerning the mental and classical epiphenomenalism are noted and discussed.