Collapsing Emergence

Taylor, Elanor

doi:10.1093/pq/pqv039

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Something like this position has been in the literature since at least Pepper (1926). More recently, Taylor (2015) argues that for any supposedly macro-level emergent property, there are associated micro-level properties that completely account for them. Nothing prevents us from incorporating these micro-level properties into our physical ontology, collapsing emergent properties into the physical, and thus strong emergentism into physicalism.…”

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confidence: 81%

Emergent Causal Laws and Physical Laws

Dosanjh

2020

Can. J. of Philosophy

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Contrasting accounts of physicalism and strong emergentism face two problems. According to the neutrality problem, contrasting supervenience-based formulations of these positions cannot be neutral with respect to certain unrelated metaphysical commitments. According to the collapse problem, emergent properties can be accounted for using an appropriately expansive physical ontology, rendering strong emergentism metaphysically suspect. I argue that both these problems can be solved with a principled distinction between emergent causal laws and physical laws. I propose such a distinction based on a finite discontinuity in the behavior of fundamental physical constituents as a function of complexity.

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confidence: 81%

Emergent Causal Laws and Physical Laws

Dosanjh

2020

Can. J. of Philosophy

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“…For example, Jaegwon Kim has argued that strong emergence requires downward causation, but that downward causation is impossible, and so that strong emergence is impossible (2006). I have argued that accounts of strong emergence face the 'collapse problem', which shows that there is no non-arbitrary way to distinguish between macro-and micro-level properties in cases of emergence, and that the only way to preserve a non-arbitrary conception of emergence is to understand it in purely explanatory terms (Taylor, 2015b). In addition to these worries, strong emergence is ontologically unparsimonious and apparently mysterious, all of which suggests that we should avoid strong emergentism.…”

Section: Weak and Strong Emergencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The rest of this piece is devoted to discussion of how such inquiry could proceed.6 Kim, J. (2006);Taylor, E. (2015b)…”

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confidence: 99%

Explanatory emergence as a guide to metaphysical structure

Taylor¹

2017

Philosophica

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The view that there is a distinction between strong, or metaphysical, emergence and weak, or explanatory, emergence, is widely accepted. It is natural, on this view, to regard accounts of strong and of weak emergence as performing different kinds of work, such that strong conceptions of emergence help us to uncover metaphysical structure, while weak conceptions of emergence help us to understand the limits of our scientific explanations. If we accept this division of labor, then it appears that we cannot use an account of weak, explanatory emergence to find out about metaphysical structure.In this paper, I explore the view that explanatory conceptions of emergence cannot be used for metaphysical purposes, and argue that it is false. Even those who reject strong emergence can, at least in principle, use certain explanatory accounts of emergence as guides to metaphysical structure. On this approach, emergence itself is explanatory, but explanatory emergence may sometimes obtain for metaphysical reasons.

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“…In addition to being ontologically unparsimonious, many philosophers have argued that strong emergentism is simply not viable. For instance, elsewhere I have argued that accounts of strong emergentism face the “collapse problem,” and Kim has argued that downward causation is an essential component of emergentism, but that downward causation is impossible, and hence that strong emergentism is false (Kim ; Taylor ). These objections do not show that a nonindividualist oppression theory is not viable, but they present a challenge for the theorist who adopts strong emergentism about groups as a way to articulate the role of groups in oppression.…”

Section: Position 3: Nonindividualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groups and Oppression

Taylor¹

2016

Hypatia

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Oppression is a form of injustice that occurs when one social group is subordinated while another is privileged, and oppression is maintained by a variety of different mechanisms including social norms, stereotypes, and institutional rules. A key feature of oppression is that it is perpetrated by and affects social groups. In this article I show that because of the central role that groups play in theories of oppression, those theories face significant, and heretofore mostly unrecognized, metaphysical problems. I then identify resources from analytic metaphysics that can be used to address these problems. I show that, although we should not be pessimistic about the prospects for a viable theory of oppression, it will take serious metaphysical work to develop a plausible ontology of oppression, and existing theories have for the most part failed to respond to this challenge.

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Collapsing Emergence

Cited by 13 publications

References 23 publications

Emergent Causal Laws and Physical Laws

Emergent Causal Laws and Physical Laws

Explanatory emergence as a guide to metaphysical structure

Groups and Oppression

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