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Mind 1998 107(425):59-71; doi:10.1093/mind/107.425.59
© 1998 by Mind Association
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Against the doctrine of microphysical supervenience

T Merricks

Department of Philosophy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284-2025, USA. E-mail: tmerrick@saturn.vcu.edu

The doctrine of Microphysical Supervenience (MS) states that:

Necessarily, if atoms A1 through An compose an object that exemplified intrinsic qualitative properties Q1 through Qn, then atoms like A1 through An (in all their respective intrinsic qualitative properties), related to one another by all the same restricted atom-to-atom relations as A1 through An, compose an object that exemplifies Q1 through Qn.

I show that MS entails a contradiction and so must be rejected. And my argument against MS provides the resources to show that Global Microphysical Supervenience (GMS) is false. GMS states that possible worlds qualitatively exactly alike at the microphysical level are qualitatively exactly alike at the macrophysical level.


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