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Mind 2001 110(437):25-44; doi:10.1093/mind/110.437.25
© 2001 by Mind Association
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Humean supervenience and rotating homogeneous matter

C Callender

Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, The London School of Economics, Houghton St, London WC2A 2AE, UK Department of Philosophy, The University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

Humean supervenience (HS) is the thesis that everything supervenes upon the spatiotemporal distribution of local intrinsic qualities. A recent threat to HS, originating in thought experiments by Armstrong and Kripke, claims that the mere possibility of rotating homogeneous discs proves HS false. I argue that the rotating disc argument (RDA) fails. If I am right, Humeans needn't abandon or alter HS to make sense of rotating homogeneous discs. Homogeneous discs, as necessarily understood by RDA, are not the sorts of things in which we should believe. These discs do not belong in our ontology - not because there is a problem with their homogeneity, but (surprisingly) because there is a problem with their rotation. RDA is shown to be a kind of parody of classic arguments for spatial substantivalism.


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The Rotating Discs Argument Defeated
Brit J Philos Sci, March 1, 2006; 57(1): 1 - 45.
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