libterm.com Local supervenience refers to the philosophical concept where properties of a particular object depend solely on the intrinsic properties of its immediate parts or regions. This principle is crucial in understanding how complex systems, such as physical objects or mental states, relate to their underlying components without requiring information beyond their local configuration. Explore the rest of the article to deepen your understanding of local supervenience and its implications in philosophy and science.
Table of Comparison
| Aspect | Local Supervenience | Strong Supervenience |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Higher-level properties depend on lower-level properties in specific, localized contexts. | Higher-level properties depend on lower-level properties across all possible worlds. |
| Scope | Conditional within actual or similar possible worlds. | Unconditional across all possible worlds. |
| Dependency | Dependence is contextual and actual-world limited. | Dependence is universal and modal. |
| Application | Used in metaphysics and mind-body philosophy for concrete cases. | Applied in modal metaphysics and ontology for global relations. |
| Example | If two objects are identical in all physical properties in the same world, they share mental properties. | If two objects share all physical properties in any possible world, they share mental properties. |
Introduction to Supervenience
Supervenience describes a relationship where a set of properties A depends on another set of properties B such that no change in A occurs without a change in B. Local supervenience holds this dependency at the level of individual objects, meaning each object's A-properties depend strictly on its B-properties. Strong supervenience extends this to all possible worlds, asserting that if two objects are indistinguishable in their B-properties in any world, they must also share identical A-properties, establishing a global necessity condition.
Defining Local Supervenience
Local supervenience is defined as the principle that if two objects are indistinguishable in all physical properties within a localized region, then they cannot differ in their corresponding mental or higher-level properties in that same region. This concept contrasts with strong supervenience, which requires this property relationship to hold across all possible worlds globally. Local supervenience emphasizes the dependency relationship between mental and physical properties confined to specific, localized spatial or temporal contexts.
Defining Strong Supervenience
Strong supervenience is defined by the condition that any two objects indistinguishable in all subvenient properties must also be identical in their supervenient properties across all possible worlds. Unlike local supervenience, which restricts this dependence relation to variations within a single world or local context, strong supervenience applies universally and necessarily without exception. This semantic distinction highlights that strong supervenience captures a global dependency relation critical in metaphysics and philosophy of mind.
Historical Context and Philosophical Significance
Local supervenience emerged as a key concept in mid-20th century analytic philosophy to address the relationship between mental and physical properties by holding that differences in mental properties must correspond to differences in physical properties localized within the same spatiotemporal region. Strong supervenience, developed later, generalizes this concept by asserting that no two possible worlds can differ in mental properties without differing in physical properties, emphasizing a global rather than localized dependency. These distinctions shaped debates on physicalism and the nature of mental causation, influencing theories on reductive and non-reductive physicalism.
Key Differences Between Local and Strong Supervenience
Local supervenience requires that any change in the supervenient properties corresponds to a change in subvenient properties within a particular region of space, emphasizing spatial or temporal proximity. Strong supervenience, on the other hand, mandates that supervenient properties depend entirely on the subvenient properties across all possible worlds, ensuring a global and necessary dependency. The key difference lies in local supervenience's focus on regional dependency versus strong supervenience's emphasis on universal, cross-world necessity.
Examples Illustrating Local Supervenience
Local supervenience occurs when differences in properties at a specific location or region depend solely on differences in physical properties at that same location, exemplified by how the color of a pixel in a digital image supervenes on the RGB values of that pixel alone. For example, in a painting, the local color cannot change without a change in the local arrangement of pigments or brush strokes, illustrating that local supervenience is strictly spatially confined. This contrasts with strong supervenience, where global or holistic physical states determine properties, such as mental states depending on the entire physical brain configuration rather than localized regions.
Examples Illustrating Strong Supervenience
Strong supervenience occurs when a set of properties A supervenes on another set B such that any two entities indistinguishable in B-properties must also be identical in A-properties, regardless of their context or world. For example, moral properties strongly supervene on natural properties if for any two individuals, having identical natural properties guarantees identical moral properties, no matter where or when they exist. This contrasts with local supervenience, which only requires this dependency within a given world or context, not across all possible worlds.
Implications for Philosophy of Mind
Local supervenience asserts that mental properties depend on physical properties within specific, localized contexts, emphasizing the mind-body correlation at a particular instance. Strong supervenience extends this dependency universally across all possible worlds, implying a more rigid and global relationship between mental and physical states. These distinctions influence debates on physicalism and the possibility of mental causation, shaping arguments about whether mental states can be fully explained by physical substrates or require separate ontological status.
Criticisms and Challenges to Both Forms
Local supervenience faces criticism for its reliance on spatial or temporal proximity, which limits its applicability in cases involving non-local phenomena such as quantum entanglement. Strong supervenience is challenged by its overly broad scope, often accused of collapsing distinctions between different possible worlds or counterfactual scenarios, thus failing to account for modal variability. Both forms encounter difficulties in providing clear criteria for the dependence relation, leading to debates over their explanatory power and metaphysical commitments.
Conclusion: Evaluating Local vs Strong Supervenience
Local supervenience requires that any change in higher-level properties must correspond to a change in lower-level properties within the same local system, emphasizing a more restrictive and context-dependent relationship. Strong supervenience extends this by applying globally, ensuring that two systems indistinguishable at the base level have identical higher-level properties regardless of context. Evaluating these concepts highlights that strong supervenience offers a robust framework for metaphysical dependence but may be too rigid for complex, context-sensitive phenomena where local supervenience provides necessary flexibility.
Local supervenience Infographic
