Jaegwon Kim

(1934 - 2019)

It was about half a century ago that the mind–body problem, which like much else in serious metaphysics had been moribund for several decades, was resurrected as a mainstream philosophical problem. The first impetus came from Gilbert Ryle'sThe Concept of Mind, published in 1948, and Wittgenstein's well-known, if not well-understood, reflections on the nature of mentality and mental language, especially in hisPhilosophical Investigationswhich appeared in 1953. The primary concerns of Ryle and Wittgenstein, however, focused on the logic of mental discourse rather than the metaphysical issue of how our mentality is related to our bodily nature. In fact, Ryle and Wittgenstein would have regarded, each for different reasons, the metaphysical problem of the mind-body relation as arising out of deplorable linguistic confusions and not amenable to intelligible discussion. There was C. D. Broad's earlier and much neglected classic,The Mind and Its Place in Nature, which appeared in 1925, but this work, although robustly metaphysical, failed to connect with, and shape, the mind–body debate in the second half of this century.

Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this highly successful textbook continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in metaphysics. In addition to updated material from the first edition, it presents entirely new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects. One of the most comprehensive and authoritative metaphysics anthologies available - now updated and expanded Offers the most important contemporary works on the central issues of metaphysics Includes new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects, as well as readings on the topics of fictionalism, fundamentality, tropes, vague identity, temporary intrinsics, stage theory, and composition Surpasses other anthologies in its combination of contributions from leading metaphysicians and a younger generation of "rising-stars"

THIS PAPER CORRECTS AN ERROR IN MY EARLIER PAPER, "CONCEPTS OF SUPERVENIENCE" ("PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH", VOLUME 45, 1984), AND PRESENTS FURTHER MATERIAL ON SUPERVENIENCE. THE ERROR IS THE CLAIM THAT "GLOBAL" SUPERVENIENCE ENTAILS "STRONG" SUPERVENIENCE. HOWEVER, IT IS ARGUED THAT THIS FAILURE OF ENTAILMENT ONLY GOES TO SHOW THE INADEQUACY OF GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE AS AN EXPLICATION OF "DEPENDENCY" OR "DETERMINATION" RELATION, AND, IN PARTICULAR, THAT MATERIALISM FORMULATED IN TERMS OF GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE APPEARS TOO WEAK. (IT IS POINTED OUT, AMONG OTHER THINGS, THAT GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE DOES NOT ENTAIL "WEAK" SUPERVENIENCE). A STRONGER FORM OF GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE, BASED ON "SIMILARITY" RATHER THAN "INDISCERNIBILITY" BETWEEN WORLDS, IS FORMULATED AND BRIEFLY DISCUSSED

This paper explores the fundamental ideas that have motivated the idea of emergence and the movement of emergentism. The concept of reduction, which lies at the heart of the emergence idea is explicated, and it is shown how the thesis that emergent properties are irreducible gives a unified account of emergence. The paper goes on to discuss two fundamental unresolved issues for emergentism. The first is that of giving a “positive” characterization of emergence; the second is to give a coherent explanation of how “downward” causation, a central component of emergentism, is able to avoid the problem of overdetermination