libterm.com Local supervenience describes a relationship where the properties of a system are determined by the properties of its immediate parts or local features. This concept is fundamental in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and science, explaining how higher-level phenomena depend on underlying physical states. Explore the rest of the article to understand how local supervenience shapes our comprehension of complex systems and emergent properties.
Table of Comparison
| Aspect | Local Supervenience | Weak Supervenience |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Properties supervene on intrinsic local properties of objects. | Properties supervene on global or entire object properties across possible worlds. |
| Scope | Focus on individual objects and their immediate properties. | Applies across entire situations or worlds, not limited to local parts. |
| Dependency | Strict dependence on local physical states. | Dependence on overall relational or holistic states. |
| Philosophical Application | Used in discussions about physicalism and mind-body supervenience. | Common in ethics, law, and social ontology to explain property relations. |
| Modal Conditions | Requires sameness in local intrinsic properties for supervenience. | Requires sameness in global properties across possible worlds. |
Introduction to Supervenience in Philosophy
Local supervenience asserts that if two entities are indiscernible in all local properties within a specific region, they must share the same supervenient properties, emphasizing a tight, point-by-point dependence. Weak supervenience only requires that indiscernibility across all possible worlds ensures identical supervenient properties, allowing for broader, less strict dependencies. These distinctions are crucial in metaphysics for understanding how higher-level properties depend systematically on lower-level bases.
Defining Local Supervenience
Local supervenience refers to a relationship where the properties of an object or system are determined by the intrinsic properties of its immediate parts or localized regions. This concept contrasts with weak supervenience, which allows properties to depend on global or broader conditions rather than strictly local features. Defining local supervenience emphasizes that any change in the supervenient properties requires a change in the underlying local base properties within the same localized context.
Understanding Weak Supervenience
Weak supervenience is a philosophical concept describing a relationship between sets of properties where the global set of properties depends on the local set, but not necessarily in a strictly one-to-one manner. Unlike local supervenience, which requires that properties supervene at every individual point or local instance, weak supervenience only demands that whenever two worlds are identical in all local properties, they must also be identical in the global properties. This distinction highlights that weak supervenience allows for broader variations in global properties without requiring corresponding differences at every local level, making it a less stringent condition.
Key Differences Between Local and Weak Supervenience
Local supervenience requires that any two objects identical in all local physical properties must be identical in all corresponding mental properties, emphasizing strict point-by-point correspondence. Weak supervenience mandates that if two objects share all properties in one domain across a possible world, they must share all properties in another domain, focusing on general property co-occurrence without strict locality. The key difference lies in local supervenience's emphasis on spatially and physically proximate conditions, whereas weak supervenience considers broader possible world comparisons without requiring strict physical similarity at particular locations.
Historical Origins and Philosophical Context
Local supervenience originated in mid-20th-century analytic philosophy, emphasizing the idea that the properties of a whole at a particular point depend on the properties of its parts at that same point, aligning closely with physicalism and reductionism. Weak supervenience emerged later as a response to challenges in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, positing that the properties of sets or individuals depend on but not fixed by local or intrinsic base properties across possible worlds, reflecting a more global or holistic dependency. Both concepts were developed within the framework of trying to understand the relationship between mental and physical properties, with local supervenience representing a stricter, more fine-grained dependence and weak supervenience allowing for broader contextual variations.
Illustrative Examples of Local Supervenience
Local supervenience asserts that if two objects are indistinguishable in all local (point-by-point) physical properties, they must share the same global mental properties, exemplified by two identical brains yielding identical mental states. In contrast, weak supervenience only requires that any variation in mental properties across possible worlds corresponds to some difference in physical properties, without demanding pointwise identity. Illustrative examples include cases where two spatially identical brain states guarantee the same conscious experience, highlighting local supervenience's strict condition on the correspondence between mental and physical properties at each spatial point.
Practical Applications of Weak Supervenience
Weak supervenience finds practical applications in fields like ethics, where it helps analyze moral properties relative to physical ones across possible worlds, ensuring consistent moral judgments without requiring strict local dependence. In artificial intelligence, weak supervenience supports the classification of mental states based on physical states, permitting flexible modeling of cognitive processes across varied contexts. Unlike local supervenience, which demands property dependencies at specific points, weak supervenience enables broader, more adaptable frameworks crucial for interdisciplinary studies involving complex systems.
Local Supervenience in Mind-Body Theories
Local supervenience in mind-body theories asserts that mental states depend on physical states within the same individual and time, ensuring no variation in mental properties without corresponding physical changes locally. This concept contrasts with weak supervenience, which only requires mental properties to depend on physical properties across possible worlds without a strict local correspondence. Local supervenience strengthens physicalism by emphasizing that mental phenomena are grounded in immediate physical configurations, supporting the idea of a direct, point-by-point dependency between mind and body.
Challenges and Criticisms of Both Concepts
Local supervenience faces challenges in dealing with incomplete or context-dependent properties, as it requires that any change in local properties corresponds to a change in global properties within the same possible world. Weak supervenience is criticized for its reliance on cross-world comparisons, which may lead to counterintuitive cases where seemingly identical local properties fail to ensure identical global properties. Both concepts struggle with addressing indeterminacy and borderline cases in property correlations, raising questions about their applicability in complex metaphysical and scientific analyses.
Conclusion: The Significance of Supervenience Distinctions
Local supervenience emphasizes that properties of a system depend on the properties of its parts in every physically possible scenario, ensuring a fine-grained dependency relation. Weak supervenience, by contrast, requires this dependency only across possible worlds sharing the same subvenient base, which provides a less stringent criterion useful in broader metaphysical contexts. Distinguishing between local and weak supervenience clarifies debates in philosophy of mind, ethics, and metaphysics by specifying how global properties relate to local configurations, thereby shaping interpretations of reductionism and emergent phenomena.
Local supervenience Infographic
