Respectability and the Promise of Superdupervenience: Comments on Horgan's "From Supervenience to Superdupervenience"

Superdupervenience as we know it was introduced by Terence Horgan (1993), though in a footnote he attributes the word itself to Bill Lycan (1986). As Horgan defines it, superdupervenience is “ontological supervenience that is robustly explainable in a materialistically acceptable way” (566). This definition is notable for its addition of the requirement that supervenience be “robustly explainable,” which Horgan says is necessary if ontological supervenience is to have materialistic “respectability.” This is never precisely defined, but the idea seems clear enough. A reasonable account of respectability in Horgan’s sense would seem simply to be the difference between supervenience and superdupervenience, but that is just explainablity. Respectability and explainability cannot be the same, however, since respectability is conferred by a “robust explanation;” it is not the explanation itself. Horgan’s favored example for a non-respectable materialism is G.E. Moore’s moral non-naturalism, and he cites J.L. Mackie’s criticism thereof in order to explain the contention, that is the non-respectability. In short, the trouble is that a non-respectable relation, such as the “supervenience” required by something like Moore’s moral non-naturalism, is not anything “in the world.” A respectable relation, then, should be explainable in the world, and here we have what Horgan calls superdupervenience.

The utility of superdupervenience hinges on the notion of materialistic respectability. If respectability is not useful, then superdupervenience is not useful. It is explainability that confers respectability, and it is explainability that differentiates supervenience and superdupervenience. Without respectability, explainability is not useful, and if explainability is not useful, there is no use for superdupervenience. We will be left just withsupervenience,[1] for better or for worse. Let the following clarify what has just been said:

P1 A relation is materialistically respectable if and only if it is robustly explainable.

P2 Supervenience is not in itself robustly explainable.

P3 Superdupervenience is by definition robustly explainable supervenience.

C1 Therefore, superdupervenience is materialistically respectable supervenience

C2 Therefore, materialistic respectability is not useful if and only if robust explainability is not useful.

C3 Therefore, if materialistic respectability is not useful, then superdupervenience is not useful.

C4 Therefore, if materialistic respectability is not useful, then supervenience may still be useful.

C4 leaves us with the possible utility of supervenience, still saddled with the problems superdupervenience was intended to solve, but only if either respectability or explainability turn out to be useless or unimportant.[2] The big problem with mere supervenience is that without explanation it is unacceptably sui generis to be “materialistically respectable.” Superdupervenience must therefore be considered within materialism, which shall now be done. Thus, it is for the sake of supervenience in a materialistic metaphysics (since this is not necessarily problematic for the non-materialist) that superdupervenience is invoked, as is clear from the very opening of Horgan’s paper.

If this is true, then, for materialism, mere supervenience might be considered useless or unimportant, and the implications of this for C4 are clear. If the additional premise “Supervenience is useful if and only if superdupervenience is useful” is taken into account, then C4 reads, “Therefore, if materialistic respectability is not useful, then supervenience is not useful.” At this point in the argument, superdupervenience is the only thing giving supervenience any utility at all, since superdupervenience requires supervenience by definition, but perhaps it is not clear that “Useful(supervenience) iff Useful(superdupervenience),” for materialism, of course. The “only if” clause is obviously true, since superdupervenience contains supervenience in its definition. The “if” clause comes from the very objection that superdupervenience seeks to resolve: supervenience is unacceptably sui generis and obscure and so forth, and hence not materialistically respectable. Of course, the biconditional holds only if superdupervenience is the only possible solution to the problem, but this just means that robust explanation is the only possible solution, which can only be true if robust explanation is the one and only sufficient condition for materialistic respectability. By saying that robust explainability confers materialistic respectability (in the relevant sense, anyway), it is admitted that robust explanation is the one and only sufficient condition thereof, and so robust explanation is assumed to be the only solution to the problem of supervenience’s materialistic non-respectability. Since robust explanation is the only solution, then superdupervenience is the only solution, so, “If Useful(supervenience) then Useful(superdupervenience).” Thus, “Useful(supervenience) iff Useful(superdupervenience).” Hence C4 shall read as I have claimed, since the necessary premise follows from Horgan’s definitions, assuming I have rendered them properly.

All this is to point to one conclusion. If one is to be a materialist and materialistic respectability is a useful concept, then superdupervenience is the only hope for supervenience, which is useless on its own. The problem is that “respectability” is not as clear a concept as one should like, and so it might be that some definitional finagling might be able to deftly dodge such a strong conclusion. It might, for example, be less closely tied to robust explainability than I have rendered it here, but I have tried to render Horgan’s meaning accurately. How that might be done is not obvious to me. One might also deny that supervenience as sui generis is respectful, after all, but in doing that, respectability would still probably need some definitional modification. One could also deny that “respectability” is meaningful, useful, important, etc. and thereby dodge the problem altogether, but if the denier is a materialist, Horgan shall likely quote Mackie and explain just how queer such a thing in a materialist ontology would be.

Superdupervenience is supposed to answer the problem presented by the concept of respectability, and if superdupervenience is possible, it appears to do just that. If respectability is not a chimera, then superdupervenience is a great hope for any materialist seeking to avoid reductionism, especially with respect to mind. Even if it is a chimera, then mere supervenience might still be useful. Because of superdupervenience, reductionism does not necessarily result for the materialist who accepts the concept of material respectability. Thus, Horgan asks a trio of questions which, if answerable, allow for a superdupervenient account, and these are the standpoint question, the target question, and the resource question, which respectively boil down to what sort of facts are needed, what specific facts are they, and do adequate explanatory resources exist for a superdupervenient account? Putting superdupervenience to work shall thus determine its usability, because if Horgan is right, that determines the usability of supervenience itself, and regardless of Horgan’s accuracy it is certainly true that the utility of a superdupervenience, which includes supervenience, certainly means that supervenience is useful, just not by itself, only alongside robust explanation.

Work Cited

Horgan, Terence. “From Supervenience to Superdupervenience: Meeting the Demands of a Material World.” Mind, New Series, vol. 102, issue 408 (Oct. 1993), pg. 555-586.

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[1] For clarification, this discussion is about ontological supervenience, following Horgan.

[2] One might alternately phrase the argument in terms of importance rather than usefulness. I consider them to be approximately equal for my purposes. The argument may also be framed in terms of possibility and in terms of robust explainability in C3 and C4, which is allowed because of the biconditional in P1. This leads to the conclusion that if supervenience is not robustly explainable, then superdupervenience is not possible. The same claim can be made with respectability, of course. Such is largely analytic in superdupervenience so defined, though.