Metaphysical Emergence: Weak and Strong∗
نویسنده
چکیده
Why care about what emergence is, and whether there is any? To start, many complex entities of our acquaintance—tornados, plants, people and the like—appear to be composed of less complex entities, and to have features which depend, one way or another, on features of their composing entities. Yet such complex entities also appear to be to some extent autonomous, both ontologically and causally, from the entities upon which they depend. Moreover, and more specifically, many ‘higher-level’ entities (particulars, systems, processes) treated by the special sciences appear to be broadly synchronically dependent on ‘lower-level’ (and ultimately fundamental physical) entities.1 Yet, as is suggested by the associated special science laws, many higher-level entities appear also to be ontologically and causally autonomous, in having features in virtue of which they are distinct from and distinctively efficacious relative to the lower-level entities upon which they depend, even taking into account that the latter stand in configurational or aggregative relations. An account of emergence making sense of these appearances would vindicate and illuminate both our experience and the existence and tree-like structure of the special sciences, as treating distinctively real and efficacious higher-level entities and their features. Reflecting these motivations, nearly all accounts of emergence take this to involve both
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