Externalism and identity

Dalia Draï

pp. 463-475

in: Synthese 134 (3), 2003.

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to show that there is one version of supervenience of the mental on the physical which is entailed by token-token identity (I call this version change-supervenience); and to establish that of the other better known versions of supervenience in the literature (which I call difference-supervenience), none are so entailed. One consequence of this is that Burge's thought experiments while successful in refutingdifference-supervenience cannot in themselves refute identity thesis. However, the introduction of change supervenience leads me to devise an analogous thought experiment against change-supervenience, thus refuting identity thesis as well.