Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T00:55:23.371Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reemergence of ‘Emergence’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Bryon Cunningham
Bryon Cunningham*
Affiliation:
Emory University
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, 1461 Rock Springs Circle, #2, Atlanta, GA 30306; email: bryoncunningham@yahoo.com.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A variety of recent philosophical discussions, particularly on topics relating to complexity, have begun to reemploy the concept of ‘emergence’. Although multiple concepts of ‘emergence’ are available, little effort has been made to systematically distinguish them. In this paper, I provide a taxonomy of higher-order properties that (inter alia) distinguishes three classes of emergent properties: (1) ontologically basic properties of complex entities, such as the mythical vital properties, (2) fully configurational properties, such as mental properties as they are conceived of by functionalists and computationalists, and (3) highly configurational/holistic properties, such as the higher-level patterns characteristic of complex dynamical systems. Or more simply: emergence as ontological liberality, emergence as multiple realizability, and emergence as interactive complexity.

Type
Metaphysics and Methodology of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 68 , Issue S3: No. 3 Supplement: Proceedings of the 2000 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 2001 , 2001 , pp. S62 - S75
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Pacific A.P.A., 2000. Special thanks to Robert N. McCauley and Amy Coplan for their comments and support.

References

Armstrong, David (1997), A World of States of Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsalou, Larry (1999), “Perceptual Symbol Systems”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22:253–279.Google ScholarPubMed
Bechtel, William and Abrahamsen, Adele (1991), Connectionism and the Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bechtel, William and Richardson, Robert (1992), “Emergent Phenomena and Complex Systems”, in Beckermann, A., Flohr, H., and Kim, J. (eds.), Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter Verlag, 257–288.Google Scholar
Bechtel, William and Richardson, Robert (1993), Discovering Complexity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chalmers, David (1996), The Conscious Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Andy (1997), Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Bryon (2001), “Capturing Qualia: Higher-order Concepts and Connectionism”, Philosophical Psychology 14(1): 29–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holland, John (1998), Emergence. Reading, Massachusetts: Perseus Books.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry (1974), “Special Sciences”, Synthese 28:97–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Jerry (1998a), “Special Sciences: Still Autonomous after All These Years”, in Fodor, Jerry, In Critical Condition. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry (1998b), Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1998), Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Mark (1987), The Body in the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kauffman, Stuart (1993), The Origins of Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon (1993), Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon (1998), Mind in a Physical World. Cambridge: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/4629.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George (1987), Women. Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medin, Douglas and Waxman, Sandra (1998), “Conceptual Organization”, in Bechtel, William and Graham, George (eds.), A Companion to Cognitive Science. Oxford: Blackwell, 167–175.Google Scholar
Port, Robert and Van Gelder, Timothy (eds.) (1995), Mind as Motion. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary (1975), “On Properties”, in Putnam, Hilary, Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 305–322.Google Scholar
Searle, John (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, William (1986), “Forms of Aggregativity”, in Donagan, A., Perovich, A.N., and Wedin, M.V. (eds.), Human Nature and Human Knowledge. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 259–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, William (1996), “Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence”, Philosophy of Science 64:372–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar