Supervenience

A relation between two sets of properties: one cannot differ without the other differing too.

Also: supervene, supervenient, supervenience base

What it means

One set of properties supervenes on another when, in the Stanford Encyclopedia's slogan, "there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference". A perfect forgery identical to a painting atom for atom must also match its shapes and colours, so those features supervene on its physical make-up. Philosophers have claimed that mental properties supervene on physical ones, and moral properties on non-moral ones. G. E. Moore stated the idea without the word, R. M. Hare used it in ethics, and Donald Davidson brought it into philosophy of mind. A main dispute is whether supervenience explains anything: by itself it only records a pattern of co-variation, and on its own it is generally judged insufficient to establish physicalism.

The questions it belongs to

• 1.11 Emergence and ReductionIs chemistry just physics, and biology just chemistry?
• 1.3.1 The Mind–Body ProblemHow can a thought move an arm?

Thinkers

• G. E. Moore
• R. M. Hare
• Donald Davidson
• Jaegwon Kim
• David Lewis

Traditions

• Analytic

To read

• Essays on Actions and Events — Donald Davidson
• Mind in a Physical World — Jaegwon Kim
• On the Plurality of Worlds — David Lewis

Sources and further reading

• Supervenience (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Written by the Coordinates of Thought editors and checked against the sources above on 29 October 2026. Not peer-reviewed. How we write and check.

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