Matter, Motion, and Humean Supervenience 1

This paper examines a doctrine which David Lewis has called ² ‘Humean supervenience’ (hereafter ‘HS’), and a problem which certain imaginary cases seem to generate for HS. ³ They include rotating perfect spheres or discs, ⁴ and flowing rivers, imagined as composed of matter which is perfectly homogeneous right down to the individual points. Before considering these examples, I shall introduce the doctrine they seem to challenge.