Papers in metaphysics and epistemology: Humean Supervenience debugged
Papers in metaphysics and epistemology: Humean Supervenience debugged
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形而上学和认识论论文：休谟附带性调试
DOI：
10.1017/cbo9780511625343.016
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发表时间：
1999
影响因子：
1.3
通讯作者：
David Lewis
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
David Lewis
几年前，我写道，我的大部分工作可以事后来看是代表“休谟随附性”的运动：关于像我们这样的世界的全部真理随附于局部性质的时空分布的论文（1986年，pp.九至十六）。我认为这次竞选大部分是成功的。尽管在因果关系方面还有一些未完成的工作，特别是孟席斯（Menzies，1989）提出的问题，我仍然认为是这样。但我写的是"有一个很大的错误：机会。正是在这里，也只有在这里，我害怕失败"（1986，第xiv页）。我想我终于能说出如何打败虫子了。但首先我得花很多时间回顾一下旧的基础。我会重新引入休谟的偶然性，带着一些事后的想法。我会说休谟对机会的分析可能是什么样子。我会说为什么休谟对机会的分析会陷入困境，为什么非休谟的分析不是一个可以接受的避难所。我会给出一个解决这个困扰休谟分析的问题的开始，我会说为什么这个开始还不够好。最后，我要告诉大家一个好消息：由于Michael Thau的建议，我想我知道如何完成这个解决方案了。由此产生的拯救休谟的机会不会给我们所有我们可能希望，但我认为它给我们足够的。所以本文的核心思想是陶的。我感谢他允许我以自己的方式在这里使用它。但它也可以用在其他方面。陶本人并没有加入我代表休谟附属性的运动。但是，还有其他一些关于偶然性的论点，比休谟的偶然性本身更弱，也更少争议，它们被自己版本的大坏虫咬了一口。正如陶（Thau，1994）在他的同伴论文中所解释的那样，他的思想也可以用来为那些较弱的论点辩护。
Years ago, I wrote that much of my work could be seen in hindsight as a campaign on behalf of "Humean Supervenience": the thesis that the whole truth about a world like ours supervenes on the spatiotemporal distribution of local qualities (1986, pp. ix-xvi). I thought this campaign had been mostly successful. Despite some unfinished business with causation, especially the problem presented in Menzies (1989), I think so still. But I wrote that "There is one big bad bug: chance. It is here, and here alone, that I fear defeat" (1986, p. xiv). I think I can say at last how to beat the bug. But first I'll have to take a lot of time reviewing old ground. I'll reintroduce Humean supervenience, with some afterthoughts. I'll say what a Humean analysis of chance might look like. I'll say why Humean analyses of chance are in bad trouble, and why unHumean analyses are not an acceptable refuge. I'll give the beginning of a solution to the problem that plagues Humean analyses, and I'll say why that beginning is not good enough. And then I'll come at last to the good news: thanks to a suggestion by Michael Thau, I think I know how to complete the solution. The resulting rescue of Humean chance won't give us all we might wish, but I think it gives us enough. So the key idea in this paper is Thau's. I thank him for kindly permitting me to use it here in my own way. But it can be used in other ways as well. Thau himself has not joined my campaign on behalf of Humean supervenience. But there are other theses about chance, weaker and less contentious than Humean supervenience itself, that are bitten by their own versions of the big bad bug. As Thau (1994) explains in his companion paper, his idea can be used also in defence of those weaker theses.