Emergence as non-aggregativity and the biases of reductionisms
Foundations of Science 5 (3):269-297 (2000)
| Abstract | Most philosophical accounts of emergence are incompatible with reduction. Most scientists regard a system property as emergent relative to properties of its parts if it depends upon their mode of organization-a view consistent with reduction. Emergence is a failure of aggregativity, in which ``the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts''. Aggregativity requires four conditions, giving powerful tools for analyzing modes of organization. Differently met for different decompositions of the system, and in different degrees, the structural conditions can provide evaluation criteria for choosing decompositions, ``natural kinds'', and detecting functional localization fallacies, approximations, and various biases of vulgar reductionisms. This analysis of emergence and use of these conditions as heuristics is consistent with a broader reductionistic methodology. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,664 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesJaegwon Kim (2006). Emergence: Core Ideas and Issues. Synthese 151 (3):547-559.
John D. Collier & Scott J. Muller (1998). The Dynamical Basis of Emergence in Natural Hierarchies. In G. L. Farre & T. Oksala (eds.), Emergence, Complexity, Hierarchy, Organization, Selected and Edited Papers From the Echo Iii Conference. Acta Polytechnica Scandinavica.
Olivier Massin (2006). Complementarity Cannot Resolve the Emergence–Reduction Debate: Reply to Harré. Synthese 151 (3):511 - 517.
F. C. Boogerd, F. J. Bruggeman, Robert C. Richardson, Achim Stephan & H. Westerhoff (2005). Emergence and Its Place in Nature: A Case Study of Biochemical Networks. Synthese 145 (1):131 - 164.
Max Kistler (2006). Reduction and Emergence in the Physical Sciences: Reply to Rueger. Synthese 151 (3):347 - 354.
William C. Wimsatt (2006). Aggregate, Composed, and Evolved Systems: Reductionistic Heuristics as Means to More Holistic Theories. Biology and Philosophy 21 (5):667-702.
William C. Wimsatt (1997). Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence. Philosophy of Science 64 (4):372-84.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads64 ( #14,310 of 549,007 )Recent downloads (6 months)4 ( #19,160 of 549,007 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
