How Properties Emerge

Humphreys, Paul

doi:10.1086/392533

Cited by 303 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Perhaps surprisingly, however, the concept of top-down causation has often been neglected or even rejected outright by advocates of social emergentism. This is potentially problematic if, as Kim has argued, emergentism logically implies downward causation, and the viability of emergence theories therefore depends upon reconciling them with a theory of downward causation ( [5], p. 3, [6], p. 121). This paper will argue that emergence and top-down causation can be reconciled, and that both play important roles in the social world.…”

Section: Top-down Causation and Social Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-down causation and social structures

Elder-Vass

2011

Interface Focus.

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Top-down causation has been implicit in many sociological accounts of social structure and its influence on social events, but the social sciences have struggled to provide a coherent account of top-down causation itself. This paper summarizes a critical realist view of causation and emergence, shows how it supports a plausible account of top-down causation and then applies this account to the social world. The argument is illustrated by an examination of the concept of a norm circle, a kind of social entity that, it is argued, is causally responsible for the influence of normative social institutions. Nevertheless, social entities are structured rather differently from ordinary material ones, with the result that the compositional level structure of reality implicit in the concept of top-down causation has some limitations in the social world. The paper closes by considering what might be involved in examining how top-down causation can be shown to be at work in the social domain.

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Section: Top-down Causation and Social Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-down causation and social structures

Elder-Vass

2011

Interface Focus.

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“…30 Entanglement is sometimes used as a general argument for saying that it is impossible to derive molecular structure from quantum mechanical first principles (Atmanspacher and Bishop 2006). Even supervenience as normally understood fails: Because there are no states of the parts, there is nothing for the state of the compound to supervene upon (Humphreys 1997). 31 Alternative formulation: The behaviour of macrophysical wholes is asymmetrically determined by the behaviour of their microphysical parts plus general laws that do not apply only to wholes of that kind (Hüttemann and Papineau 2005). independently'').…”

Section: Can Chemistry Be Reduced To Physics?-quantum Mechanicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemistry and physics: no need for metaphysical glue

Brakel

2010

Found Chem

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Using the notorious bridge law ''water is H 2 O'' and the relation between molecular structure and quantum mechanics as examples, I argue that it doesn't make sense to aim for specific definition(s) of intertheoretical or interdiscourse relation(s) between chemistry and physics (reduction, supervenience, what have you). Proposed definitions of interdiscourse and part-whole relations are interesting only if they provide insight in the variegated interconnected patchwork of theories and beliefs. There is ''automatically'' some sort of interdiscourse relation if different discourses claim to have something to say about the same situation (event, system), which is the basis of (contingent) local supervenience relations, which, proper empirically support being provided, can be upgraded to ceteris paribus bridge laws. Because of the ceteris paribus feature, and the discourse dependence of event identification, there is at best only global supervenience of the ''special sciences'' on the physical (and of parts of physics on other parts of physics). Events and discoursesConsider four discourses for speaking about water.1. The human-centred (non-scientific) discourse concerning manifest features of the world, what Putnam (1975) called the stereotypical features of water. This discourse on the ''stuff'' water is not restricted to common sense. It may include sophisticated (Husserlian or Wittgensteinian) phenomenology. 2. Scientific discourse concerning macroscopic bodies of water, emerging from the manifest discourse; for example the event of boiling water. Here we encounter macroscopic (scientific) theories such as thermodynamics and hydrodynamics.

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“…Otherwise, the emergent property does not supervene, in which case it is underdetermined and therefore unpredictable. Teller (1986), Humphreys (1997a), and Silberstein (1998), among others, have argued that quantum mechanics provides strong evidence for the existence of emergent properties. If they are correct, then emergence is indeed ubiquitous.…”

Section: An Appeal To Relationalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence

Francescotti

2007

Erkenntnis

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Here I offer a precise analysis of what it takes for a property to count as emergent. The features widely considered crucial to emergence include novelty, unpredictability, supervenience, relationality, and downward causal influence. By acknowledging each of these distinctive features, the definition provided below captures an important sense in which the whole can be more than the sum of its parts.Fans of emergent properties believe that sometimes the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Since talk of emergent properties continues to remain popular in the philosophical literature (especially in the philosophy of mind), it would be nice to know exactly what this slogan means. Then we could decide whether emergence actually does obtain, and if so how pervasive it really is.Here I provide an analysis of the concept of emergence that captures each of its widely recognized ingredients. Sections 1 and 2 highlight three of these ingredients-novelty, supervenience, and unpredictability-the second two of which notoriously seem to conflict. The following sections consider various ways to render the supervenience and unpredictability claims compatible, ending in section 5 with the definition I favor. It is then shown, in section 6, how the definition proposed captures another commonly recognized ingredient, downward causal influence, and how this feature, too, is rendered compatible with the supervenience requirement. By capturing each of these widely recognized ingredients, the analysis

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How Properties Emerge

Cited by 303 publications

References 11 publications

Top-down causation and social structures

Top-down causation and social structures

Chemistry and physics: no need for metaphysical glue

Emergence

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