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Supervenient Bridge Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Terence E. Horgan
Terence E. Horgan*
Affiliation:
DePauw University
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Abstract

I invoke the conceptual machinery of contemporary possible-world semantics to provide an account of the metaphysical status of “bridge laws” in intertheoretic reductions. I argue that although bridge laws are not definitions, and although they do not necessarily reflect attribute-identities, they are supervenient. I.e., they are true in all possible worlds in which the reducing theory is true.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 1978, pp. 227 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1978

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Footnotes

†

I am grateful to Robert Causey, Alvin Goldman, Jaegwon Kim, Lawrence Sklar, and the referees of this journal for helpful comments on various ancestors of this paper.

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