ABSTRACT
The supervenience claim means that in somesense of 'necessary' it is necessarily true that if an F truth changes, then some G truth changes, or necessarily, if two situations are identical in point of Gfacts, then they are identical in terms of F facts as well. Belief in supervenience is then at least the belief that whenever a thing is in some F state, this is because it is in some underlying G state, or is in virtue of its being in some underlying G state. This chapter explains how we should interpret the supervenience of the mental on the physical? It concludes with an estimate of the importance of supervenience claims in metaphysics. The author believes many supervenience claims in varying strengths; perhaps unlike them he see them as part of the problem – in the philosophy of mind, or of secondary properties, or of morals or kinds – and not part of the solution.
