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Emergence: logical, functional and dynamical

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Abstract

Philosophical accounts of emergence have been explicated in terms of logical relationships between statements (derivation) or static properties (function and realization). Jaegwon Kim is a modern proponent. A property is emergent if it is not explainable by (or reducible to) the properties of lower level components. This approach, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in scientific explanations of complex systems. The standard philosophical notion of emergence posits the wrong dichotomies, confuses compositional physicalism with explanatory physicalism, and is unable to represent the type of dynamic processes (self-organizing feedback) that both generate emergent properties and express downward causation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

    Sandra D. Mitchell

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  1. Sandra D. Mitchell
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Correspondence to Sandra D. Mitchell.

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Some of the arguments in this paper are also developed in my 2008 Komplexitaten: Warum wir erst anfangen die welt zu Verstehen, Suhrkamp Verlag and a revised English version of that book, Unsimple Truths: Science, complexity and Policy, University of Chicago Press, 2009.

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Mitchell, S.D. Emergence: logical, functional and dynamical. Synthese 185, 171–186 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9719-1

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