ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the varieties of supervenience and the interrelationships that result from construing the supervening realm in different ways. Ontological supervenience is a connection between classes of properties whereas ascriptive supervenience is a connection between types of judgments. Furthermore, in ontological supervenience the necessity of the connection involved is interpreted as being in the nature of things, or a metaphysical necessity. Ascriptive supervenience has been construed as a matter of the logic of certain kinds of terms. So construed, the necessity it involves is conceptual. Ontological supervenience, on the other hand, construed as a matter of the nature of things, involves non-logical, presumably metaphysical, necessity. Since ontological supervenience is a relationship between classes of properties, it is naturally associated with a realistic view of the supervening class. Indeed, ontological supervenience seems to be a sufficient, but not a necessary, condition for realism about the supervening realm.
