Abstract

Proponents of the idea that reality is hierarchical appeal to the ‘multiple realizability’ of higher‐level properties. The ontology of multiple realizability is fuzzy, however, and in any case, we can accommodate putative examples of multiple realizability without positing higher‐level properties. Predicates taken to name such properties are better understood as being satisfied by diverse but similar properties. Ontological reduction does not imply analytical or explanatory reduction.