Collier, John. “Supervenience and reduction in biological hierarchies.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 18, no. sup1 (1988): 209-234.
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Supervenience is a relationship which has been used recently to explain the physical
determination of biological phenomena despite resistance to reduction (Rosenberg,
1978, 1985; Sober, 1984a). Supervenience, however, is plagued by ambiguities which
weaken its explanatory value and obscure some interesting aspects of reduction in
biology. Although I suspect that similar considerations affect the use of supervenience
in ethics and the philosophy of mind, I don’t intend anything I have to say here to apply
outside of the physical and biological cases I consider.