Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Externalism and Identity

  • Published:
Synthese Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to show that there is one version of supervenience of the mental on the physical which is entailed by token-token identity (I call this version change-supervenience); and to establish that of the other better known versions of supervenience in the literature (which I call difference-supervenience), none are so entailed. One consequence of this is that Burge's thought experiments while successful in refutingdifference-supervenience cannot in themselves refute identity thesis. However, the introduction of change supervenience leads me to devise an analogous thought experiment against change-supervenience, thus refuting identity thesis as well.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Bacon, J.: 1986, 'Supervenience, Necessary Coextension, and Reducibility', Philosophical Studies 49, 163–176.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burge, T.: 1979, 'Individualism and the Mental', in P. French, T. Uehling and H. Wettstein (eds), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume 4, University of Minnesota Press.

  • Burge, T.: 1993, 'Mind-Body Causation and Explanatory Practice', in J. Heil and A. Mele (eds), Mental Causation, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, D.: 1982, Essays on Actions and Events, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dretske, F.: 1967, 'Can Events Move?', Mind 76, 479–492.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor, J.: 1974, 'Special Sciences, or the Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis', Synthese 28, 97–115.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geach, P.: 1969, God and the Soul, London.

  • Gibbons, J.: 1993, 'Identity Without Supervenience', Philosophical Studies 70(1), 59–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haugeland, J.: 1982, 'Weak Supervenience', American Philosophical Quarterly 19, 93–103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J.: 1993, Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGinn, C.: 1982, The Character of Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, H.: 1975, Mind, Language, and Reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel E-mail

    Dalia Drai

Authors
  1. Dalia Drai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Drai, D. Externalism and Identity. Synthese 134, 463–475 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022915720037

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022915720037

Keywords

Search

Navigation