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Emergence, therefore antireductionism? A critique of emergent antireductionism

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Abstract

Emergent antireductionism in biological sciences states that even though all living cells and organisms are composed of molecules, molecular wholes are characterized by emergent properties that can only be understood from the perspective of cellular and organismal levels of composition. Thus, an emergence claim (molecular wholes are characterized by emergent properties) is thought to support a form of antireductionism (properties of higher-level molecular wholes can only be understood by taking into account concepts, theories and explanations dealing with higher-level entities). I argue that this argument is flawed: even if molecular wholes are characterized by emergent properties and even if many successful explanations in biology are not molecular, there is no entailment between the two claims.

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Notes

  1. There are several ways of describing levels (Craver 2007, Ch. 5). Emergentists are specifically concerned with levels of whole-parts composition, where a ‘higher’ level refers to the whole, and a ‘lower’ level to its parts. It is in this sense that I use the term ‘level’ in this paper.

  2. A mechanism is characterized as “entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular changes from start or set up conditions to finish or termination conditions” (Machamer et al. 2000). Alternatively, a mechanism is “a complex system which produces that behavior by the interaction of a number of parts according to direct causal laws” (Glennan 1996), “a complex system that produces that behavior by the interaction of a number of parts, where the interactions among parts can be characterized by direct, invariant, change relating generalization” (Glennan 2002), or “a structure performing a function in virtue of its component parts, component operations, and their organization […] responsible for one or more phenomena” (Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005).

  3. In a causal-manipulationist sense (Woodward 2003; Craver 2007): X (IκB) is causally relevant to Y (peak of T-cell activation) if one can manipulate Y by intervening on X; X is explanatorily relevant to Y if it is causally relevant.

  4. Kenneth Waters (2007) introduced the notion of ‘actual and specific difference maker’ in relation to DNA. In order for DNA to contribute to a phenotype, several causally relevant factors must be present. However, he argues, what actually makes the difference between two inherited phenotypes is a matter of DNA sequence. Other causal factors, such as the RNA polymerase, are either always present (they are part of the constant causal background) or are much less specific (they affect gene expression in general and not the expression of a particular gene).

  5. The terms ‘glass-’ and ‘black-box’ belong to Lindley Darden (2006).

  6. To draw a quick analogy, physicists have been aware of the notorious n-body problem since Newton. Newton was able to solve the two-body problem for gravitational interaction, modern computers can give solutions to some three-body problems, while a general solution for the n-body problem is still to be found. It can be easily argued that the motion of a planet revolving around a binary star system is an emergent property because physicists don’t have the mathematical tools to predict it. Still, even if we endorse epistemological emergentism, the problem does not fall outside the scope of mechanics.

  7. It has been repeatedly pointed out that most explanations in biology are best characterized as descriptions of productive mechanisms (Bechtel 2006; Darden 2006; Wimsatt 1976; Craver 2007). Mechanistic explanations place an emphasis not only on composition, but also on how parts are organized in a certain way in order to produce/generate/underlie/maintain the phenomenon to be explained (Machamer et al. 2000; Glennan 1996, 2002; Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005). Since mechanistic explanations explicitly appeal to a multitude of entities, activities, and organizational features jointly needed in order to produce the target phenomenon, they are different from reductive explanations pointing out ‘the cause’ of a phenomenon.

  8. Van Regenmortel (2002) adopts an even more radical position by claiming that only a higher-level functional explanation taking into account the benefits of a trait for the organism as a whole can provide a satisfactory explanation of immunity. Unfortunately, the argument rests on three undefended assumptions. The first assumption is that functions can only be understood as proper/selected functions [“It is the/a proper function of an item (X) of an organism (O) to do that which items of X's type did to contribute to the inclusive fitness of O's ancestors, and which caused the genotype, of which X is the phenotypic expression, to be selected by natural selection” (Neander 1991)]. The second assumption is that the unit of selection is the organism. The third assumption is that an evolutionary explanation of immunity is, in fact, satisfactory. All three assumptions are problematic: there are alternative accounts of functions (Craver 2001; Cummins 1975); the philosophical consensus acknowledges a plurality of units of selection (Okasha 2008); finally, there are issues evolutionary explanations fail to address in a satisfactory manner (e.g., if immunity is a functional adaptation that has been selected for, how does this explain the prevalence of autoimmune diseases?).

  9. Carroll et al. (2005) discuss in detail how pleiotropic effects on other regions of the body are avoided by a combination of tissue-specific transcription factors and genomic regulatory sequences.

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Correspondence to Tudor M. Baetu.

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Baetu, T.M. Emergence, therefore antireductionism? A critique of emergent antireductionism. Biol Philos 27, 433–448 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-011-9290-2

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