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philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some s ...
, emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves
consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scient ...
and the
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addr ...
. A property of a
system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and expresse ...
is said to be emergent if it is a new outcome of some other properties of the system and their interaction, while it is itself different from them.O'Connor, Timothy and Wong, Hong Yu, "Emergent Properties", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . Within the
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
, emergentism is analyzed both as it contrasts with and parallels
reductionism Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical pos ...
. Emergent properties, laws and principles, appear when a system is studied at a higher level of organization (holistic instead of atomic level). They often show a high level of complexity, despite the fundamental principles that regulate the components of the system being simple. For example, in emergentism, the laws of chemistry are believed to emerge only from a few fundamental laws of physics (some still not discovered), biology from chemistry, and psychology from biology, although we still have not been able to fully deduce these holistic relations from the atomic level because of their complexity. Consciousness is believed to appear in certain large neural networks, but is not an attribute of a single neuron. In emergentism, no mystic principles are believed to be added at higher level, but emergentism is naturalistic. Emergent properties are not identical with, reducible to, or deducible from the other properties. The different ways in which this independence requirement can be satisfied lead to variant types of emergence.


Forms

All varieties of emergentism strive to be compatible with
physicalism In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substan ...
, the theory that the universe is composed exclusively of physical entities, and in particular with the evidence relating changes in the brain with changes in mental functioning. Many forms of emergentism, including proponents of complex adaptive systems, do not hold a material but rather a relational or processual view of the universe. Furthermore, they view
mind–body dualism In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, Hart, W. D. 1996. "Dualism." pp. 265–267 in ''A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind'', edited by S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell. ...
as a conceptual error insofar as mind and body are merely different types of relationships. As a theory of mind (which it is not always), emergentism differs from
idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to id ...
,
eliminative materialism Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. It is the idea that majority of the mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coher ...
, identity theories,
neutral monism Neutral monism is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind. These theories reject the dichotomy of mind and matter, believing the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other wor ...
,
panpsychism In the philosophy of mind, panpsychism () is the view that the mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists thro ...
, and
substance dualism Substance may refer to: * Matter, anything that has mass and takes up space Chemistry * Chemical substance, a material with a definite chemical composition * Drug substance ** Substance abuse, drug-related healthcare and social policy diagnosis ...
, whilst being closely associated with
property dualism Property dualism describes a category of positions in the philosophy of mind which hold that, although the world is composed of just one kind of substance— the physical kind—there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties ...
. It is generally not obvious whether an emergent theory of mind embraces mental causation or must be considered epiphenomenal. Some varieties of emergentism are not specifically concerned with the
mind–body problem The mind–body problem is a philosophical debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body. The debate goes beyond addressing the mere question of how mind and bo ...
but constitute a theory of the nature of the universe comparable to
pantheism Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ...
. They suggest a
hierarchical A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...
or layered view of the whole of nature, with the layers arranged in terms of increasing
complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generally used to ch ...
with each requiring its own
special science Special sciences are those sciences other than fundamental physics. In this view, chemistry, biology, and neuroscience—indeed, all sciences except fundamental physics—are special sciences. The status of the special sciences, and their relat ...
. Typically
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relat ...
(
mathematical physics Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the developmen ...
,
particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...
, and
classical physics Classical physics is a group of physics theories that predate modern, more complete, or more widely applicable theories. If a currently accepted theory is considered to be modern, and its introduction represented a major paradigm shift, then the ...
) is basic, with chemistry built on top of it, then
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
,
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
, and
social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
. Reductionists respond that the arrangement of the sciences is a matter of convenience, and that chemistry is derivable from physics (and so forth) ''in principle'', an argument which gained force after the establishment of a quantum-mechanical basis for chemistry. Other varieties see
mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental Phenomenon, phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, Will (philosophy), will, and Sensation (psy ...
or
consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scient ...
as specifically and anomalously requiring emergentist explanation, and therefore constitute a family of positions in the
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addr ...
.
Douglas Hofstadter Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, an ...
summarises this view as "the soul is more than the sum of its parts". A number of philosophers have offered the argument that
qualia In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () ...
constitute the
hard problem of consciousness The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to d ...
, and resist reductive explanation in a way that all other phenomena do not. In contrast, reductionists generally see the task of accounting for the possibly atypical properties of mind and of living things as a matter of showing that, contrary to appearances, such properties are indeed fully accountable in terms of the properties of the basic constituents of nature and therefore in no way genuinely atypical. Intermediate positions are possible: for instance, some emergentists hold that emergence is neither universal nor restricted to consciousness, but applies to (for instance) living creatures, or self-organising systems, or
complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication sy ...
. Some philosophers hold that emergent properties causally interact with more fundamental levels, an idea known as downward causation. Others maintain that higher-order properties simply
supervene In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. Some examples include: * Whether t ...
over lower levels without direct causal interaction. All the cases so far discussed have been synchronic, i.e. the emergent property exists simultaneously with its basis. Yet another variation operates diachronically. Emergentists of this type believe that ''genuinely novel properties'' can come into being, without being accountable in terms of the preceding history of the universe. (Contrast with
indeterminism Indeterminism is the idea that events (or certain events, or events of certain types) are not caused, or do not cause deterministically. It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance. It is highly relevant to the philosophical prob ...
where it is only the ''arrangement or configuration'' of matter that is unaccountable). These evolution-inspired theories often have a
theological Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...
aspect, as in the
process philosophy Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. In opposition to the classic ...
of
Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found applicat ...
and
Charles Hartshorne Charles Hartshorne (; June 5, 1897 – October 9, 2000) was an American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but also contributed to ornithology. He developed the neoclassical idea of God and ...
.


Relationship to vitalism

A refinement of
vitalism Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...
may be recognized in contemporary molecular histology in the proposal that some key organising and structuring features of organisms, perhaps including even life itself, are examples of emergent processes; those in which a complexity arises, out of interacting chemical processes forming interconnected feedback cycles, that cannot fully be described in terms of those processes since the system as a whole has properties that the constituent reactions lack. Whether emergent system properties should be grouped with traditional vitalist concepts is a matter of semantic controversy. In a light-hearted millennial vein, Kirshner and Michison call research into integrated cell and organismal physiology “molecular vitalism.” According to Emmeche ''et al.'' (1997):
"On the one hand, many scientists and philosophers regard emergence as having only a pseudo-scientific status. On the other hand, new developments in physics, biology, psychology, and crossdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science, artificial life, and the study of non-linear dynamical systems have focused strongly on the high level 'collective behaviour' of complex systems, which is often said to be truly emergent, and the term is increasingly used to characterize such systems."Emmeche C (1997) EXPLAINING EMERGENCE:towards an ontology of levels. Journal for General Philosophy of Scienc
available online
Emmeche ''et al.'' (1998) state that "there is a very important difference between the vitalists and the emergentists: the vitalist's creative forces were relevant only in organic substances, not in inorganic matter. Emergence hence is creation of new properties regardless of the substance involved." "The assumption of an extra-physical vitalis (vital force,
entelechy In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his ''Physics'', ''Metaphysics'', ''Nicomachean Ethics'', and ''De Anima''. The c ...
, élan vital, etc.), as formulated in most forms (old or new) of vitalism, is usually without any genuine explanatory power. It has served altogether too often as an intellectual tranquilizer or verbal sedative—stifling scientific inquiry rather than encouraging it to proceed in new directions." In ''
The Conscious Mind ''The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory'' was published in 1996, and is the first book written by David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher specialising in philosophy of mind. Though the book has been greatly influential, Chalmers ...
'' (1996) David Chalmers argues that comparisons between vitalism and the "
hard problem of consciousness The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to d ...
" commit a
category error A category mistake, or category error, or categorical mistake, or mistake of category, is a semantic or ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category, or, alternativel ...
, because, unlike life, consciousness is irreducible to lower-order physical facts. It is logically impossible that one could perfectly replicate all the lower order facts of, say, wombat
cellular biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...
without the higher order facts about the wombat coming along for the ride. In contrast, it is
logically possible Logical possibility refers to a logical proposition that cannot be disproved, using the axioms and rules of a given system of logic. The logical possibility of a proposition will depend upon the system of logic being considered, rather than on the ...
that all the physical facts of the world could be the same without consciousness ever coming into the question (i.e.
philosophical zombie A philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that imagines a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have conscious experience, qual ...
s). By Chalmers account, facts about consciousness are "further facts about the world in addition to the physical facts." Chalmers concludes that consciousness is a fundamental fact of nature, and thus has no need to emerge out of anything.


History


John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
outlined his version of emergentism in '' System of Logic'' (1843). Mill argued that the properties of some physical systems, such as those in which dynamic forces combine to produce simple motions, are subject to a law of nature he called the "
Composition of Causes The Composition of Causes was a set of philosophical laws advanced by John Stuart Mill in his watershed essay ''A System of Logic''. These laws outlined Mill's view of the epistemological components of emergentism, a school of philosophical laws tha ...
". According to Mill, emergent properties are not subject to this law, but instead amount to more than the sums of the properties of their parts. Mill believed that various
chemical reaction A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the positions of electrons in the forming and breakin ...
s (poorly understood in his time) could provide examples of emergent properties, although some critics believe that modern
physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical me ...
has shown that these reactions can be given satisfactory
reductionist Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical po ...
explanations. For instance, it has been claimed by Dirac that the whole of chemistry is, in principle, contained in the
Schrödinger equation The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of the ...
.


C. D. Broad

British philosopher
C. D. Broad Charlie Dunbar Broad (30 December 1887 – 11 March 1971), usually cited as C. D. Broad, was an English epistemologist, historian of philosophy, philosopher of science, moral philosopher, and writer on the philosophical aspects of psychic ...
defended a realistic
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...
in '' The Mind and its Place in Nature'' (1925) arguing that emergent materialism is the most likely solution to the mind–body problem. Broad defined emergence as follows:
Put in abstract terms the emergent theory asserts that there are certain wholes, composed (say) of constituents A, B, and C in a relation R to each other; that all wholes composed of constituents of the same kind as A, B, and C in relations of the same kind as R have certain characteristic properties; that A, B, and C are capable of occurring in other kinds of complex where the relation is not of the same kind as R; and that the characteristic properties of the whole R(A, B, C) cannot, even in theory, be deduced from the most complete knowledge of the properties of A, B, and C in isolation or in other wholes which are not of the form R(A, B, C).
This definition amounted to the claim that mental properties would count as emergent if and only if
philosophical zombie A philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that imagines a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have conscious experience, qual ...
s were metaphysically possible. Many philosophers take this position to be inconsistent with some formulations of psychophysical
supervenience In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. Some examples include: * Whether t ...
.


C. Lloyd Morgan and Samuel Alexander

Samuel Alexander Samuel Alexander (6 January 1859 – 13 September 1938) was an Australian-born British philosopher. He was the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college. Early life Alexander was born at 436 George Street, in what is now the commerc ...
's views on emergentism, argued in '' Space, Time, and Deity'' (1920), were inspired in part by the ideas in psychologist C. Lloyd Morgan's ''
Emergent Evolution Emergent evolution is the hypothesis that, in the course of evolution, some entirely new properties, such as mind and consciousness, appear at certain critical points, usually because of an unpredictable rearrangement of the already existing entiti ...
''. Alexander believed that emergence was fundamentally inexplicable, and that emergentism was simply a "brute empirical fact": "The higher quality emerges from the lower level of existence and has its roots therein, but it emerges therefrom, and it does not belong to that level, but constitutes its possessor a new order of existent with its special laws of behaviour. The existence of emergent qualities thus described is something to be noted, as some would say, under the compulsion of brute empirical fact, or, as I should prefer to say in less harsh terms, to be accepted with the “natural piety” of the investigator. It admits no explanation." ( Space, Time, and Deity) Despite the causal and explanatory gap between the phenomena on different levels, Alexander held that emergent qualities were ''not'' epiphenomenal. His view can perhaps best be described as a form of non-reductive physicalism (NRP) or
supervenience In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. Some examples include: * Whether t ...
theory.


Ludwig von Bertalanffy

Ludwig von Bertalanffy Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, app ...
founded
general systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
(GST), which is a more contemporary approach to emergentism. A popularization of many of the elements of GST may be found in '' The Web of Life'' by
Fritjof Capra Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher ...
.


Jaegwon Kim

Addressing emergentism (under the guise of non-reductive physicalism) as a solution to the
mind–body problem The mind–body problem is a philosophical debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body. The debate goes beyond addressing the mere question of how mind and bo ...
Jaegwon Kim Jaegwon Kim (September 12, 1934 – November 27, 2019) was a Korean-American philosopher. At the time of his death, Kim was an emeritus professor of philosophy at Brown University. He also taught at several other leading American universitie ...
has raised an objection based on
causal closure Physical causal closure is a metaphysical fallacy about the nature of causation in the physical realm with significant ramifications in the study of metaphysics and the mind. It's based on the misconception that the physical world is a combinator ...
and
overdetermination Overdetermination occurs when a single-observed effect is determined by multiple causes, any one of which alone would be sufficient to account for ("determine") the effect. That is, there are more causes present than are necessary to cause the e ...
. Emergentism strives to be compatible with physicalism, and physicalism, according to Kim, has a principle of causal closure according to which every physical event is fully accountable in terms of physical causes. This seems to leave no "room" for mental causation to operate. If our bodily movements were caused by the preceding state of our bodies ''and'' our decisions and intentions, they would be overdetermined. Mental causation in this sense is not the same as
free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to acti ...
, but is only the claim that mental states are causally relevant. If emergentists respond by abandoning the idea of mental causation, their position becomes a form of
epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism is a position on the mind–body problem which holds that physical and biochemical events within the human body ( sense organs, neural impulses, and muscle contractions, for example) are the sole cause of mental events (thought, c ...
. In detail: he proposes using the chart on the right (which was originally drawn with the $ by Nancey Murphy) that ''M1'' causes ''M2'' (these are mental events) and ''P1'' causes ''P2'' (these are physical events). ''P1'' realises ''M1'' and ''P2'' realises ''M2''. However ''M1'' does not causally effect ''P1'' (i.e., ''M1'' is a
consequent A consequent is the second half of a hypothetical proposition. In the standard form of such a proposition, it is the part that follows "then". In an implication, if ''P'' implies ''Q'', then ''P'' is called the antecedent and ''Q'' is called ...
event of ''P1''). If ''P1'' causes ''P2'', and ''M1'' is a result of ''P1'', then ''M2'' is a result of ''P2''. He says that the only alternatives to this problem is to accept dualism (where the mental events are independent of the physical events) or
eliminativism Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. It is the idea that majority of the mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent ...
(where the mental events do not exist).


See also

* Anomalous monism * Clinamen *
Complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication sy ...
* Elisionism * Emergence *
Holism Holism () is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts. The term "holism" was coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book ''Holism and Evolution''."holism, n." OED Onl ...
* Reduction (philosophy) *
Special sciences Special sciences are those sciences other than fundamental physics. In this view, chemistry, biology, and neuroscience—indeed, all sciences except fundamental physics—are special sciences. The status of the special sciences, and their relatio ...
*
Supervenience In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible. Some examples include: * Whether t ...
*
Synergetics (Fuller) Synergetics is the empirical study of systems in transformation, with an emphasis on whole system behaviors unpredicted by the behavior of any components in isolation. R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) named and pioneered the field. His two-vol ...
* Synergetics (Haken)


Notes


Further reading

* Beckermann, Ansgar, Hans Flohr, and Jaegwon Kim, eds., ''Emergence Or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism'' (1992). * Cahoone, Lawrence, ''The Orders of Nature'' (2013). * Clayton, Philip and Paul Davies, eds., ''The Re-emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion''. Oxford University Press (2008). * Gregersen Niels H., eds., ''From Complexity to Life: On Emergence of Life and Meaning''. Oxford University Press (2013). * Jones, Richard H., ''Analysis & the Fullness of Reality: An Introduction to Reductionism & Emergence''. Jackson Square Books (2013). * Laughlin, Robert B., '' A Different Universe'' (2005). * MacDonald, Graham and Cynthia, ''Emergence in Mind''. Oxford University Press (2010). * McCarthy, Evan, "The Emergentist Theory of Truth" (2015). * Morowitz, Harold J., ''The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex''. Oxford University Press (2002).


External links


Emergent Properties
in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

in the Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, 2007.
Reduction and Emergence in Chemistry
''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. {{Authority control Theory of mind Emergence