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Robert C. Bishop [34]Robert Charles Bishop [1]
  1. Contextual Emergence in the Description of Properties.Robert C. Bishop & Harald Atmanspacher - 2006 - Foundations of Physics 36 (12):1753-1777.
    The role of contingent contexts in formulating relations between properties of systems at different descriptive levels is addressed. Based on the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions for interlevel relations, a comprehensive classification of such relations is proposed, providing a transparent conceptual framework for discussing particular versions of reduction, emergence, and supervenience. One of these versions, contextual emergence, is demonstrated using two physical examples: molecular structure and chirality, and thermal equilibrium and temperature. The concept of stability is emphasized as a (...)
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  2. Downward causation in fluid convection.Robert C. Bishop - 2008 - Synthese 160 (2):229 - 248.
    Recent developments in nonlinear dynamics have found wide application in many areas of science from physics to neuroscience. Nonlinear phenomena such as feedback loops, inter-level relations, wholes constraining and modifying the behavior of their parts, and memory effects are interesting candidates for emergence and downward causation. Rayleigh–Bénard convection is an example of a nonlinear system that, I suggest, yields important insights for metaphysics and philosophy of science. In this paper I propose convection as a model for downward causation in classical (...)
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  3. Patching physics and chemistry together.Robert C. Bishop - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (5):710-722.
    The "usual story" regarding molecular chemistry is that it is roughly an application of quantum mechanics. That is to say, quantum mechanics supplies everything necessary and sufficient, both ontologically and epistemologically, to reduce molecular chemistry to quantum mechanics. This is a reductive story, to be sure, but a key explanatory element of molecular chemistry, namely molecular structure, is absent from the quantum realm. On the other hand, typical characterizations of emergence, such as the unpredictability or inexplicability of molecular structure based (...)
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  4. (1 other version)The hidden premise in the causal argument for physicalism.Robert C. Bishop - 2005 - Analysis 66 (1):44-52.
    The causal argument for physicalism is anayzed and it's key premise--the causal closure of physics--is found wanting. Therefore, a hidden premise must be added to the argument to gain its conclusion, but the hidden premise is indistinguishable from the conclusion of the causal argument. Therefore, it begs the question on physicalism.
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  5.  61
    Nonequilibrium statistical mechanics Brussels–Austin style.Robert C. Bishop - 2004 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35 (1):1-30.
    The fundamental problem on which Ilya Prigogine and the Brussels–Austin Group have focused can be stated briefly as follows. Our observations indicate that there is an arrow of time in our experience of the world (e.g., decay of unstable radioactive atoms like uranium, or the mixing of cream in coffee). Most of the fundamental equations of physics are time reversible, however, presenting an apparent conflict between our theoretical descriptions and experimental observations. Many have thought that the observed arrow of time (...)
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  6.  99
    Contextual Emergence of Physical Properties.Robert C. Bishop & George F. R. Ellis - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (5):481-510.
    Contextual emergence was originally proposed as an inter-level relation between different levels of description to describe an epistemic notion of emergence in physics. Here, we discuss the ontic extension of this relation to different domains or levels of physical reality using the properties of temperature and molecular shape as detailed case studies. We emphasize the concepts of stability conditions and multiple realizability as key features of contextual emergence. Some broader implications contextual emergence has for the foundations of physics and cognitive (...)
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  7.  70
    Chaos, indeterminism, and free will.Robert C. Bishop - 2001 - In Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 84-100.
    An overview of chaos, indeterminism, free will and the relationship between physics and free will.
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  8.  56
    On Separating Predictability and Determinism.Robert C. Bishop - 2003 - Erkenntnis 58 (2):169-188.
    There has been a long-standing debate about the relationship of predictability and determinism. Some have maintained that determinism implies predictability while others have maintained that predictability implies determinism. Many have maintained that there are no implication relations between determinism and predictability. This summary is, of course, somewhat oversimplified and quick at least in the sense that there are various notions of determinism and predictability at work in the philosophical literature. In this essay I will focus on what I take to (...)
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  9.  77
    (1 other version)The Physics of Emergence.Robert C. Bishop - 2019 - San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool publication as part of IOP Concise Physics.
    This book explores whether physics points to a reductive or an emergent structure of the world and proposes a physics-motivated conception of emergence that leaves behind many of the problematic intuitions shaping the philosophical conceptions. Examining several detailed case studies reveals results that point to stability conditions playing a crucial though underappreciated role in the physics of emergence. This contextual emergence has thought-provoking consequences for physics and beyond.
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  10.  82
    Excluding the causal exclusion argument against non-redirective physicalism.Robert C. Bishop - 2012 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (5-6):57-74.
    A much discussed argument in the philosophy of mind against non-reductive physicalism leads to the conclusion that all genuine causes involved in mental phenomena must be reductive physical causes. The latter ostensibly exclude any other causes from having genuine effects in human thought and behaviour. Jaegwon Kim has been the chief exponent of this line of argument, calling it variously the causal exclusion argument or the supervenience argument against non-reductive physicalism. I will analyse this argument and show that some of (...)
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  11. What could be worse than the butterfly effect?Robert C. Bishop - 2008 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38 (4):pp. 519-547.
    Some have argued that chaos, with its characteristic feature of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, should be sensitive to quantum events (Hobbs 1991; Kellert 1993). The upshot of these arguments is that classical chaos would then be indeterministic, but such a conclusion is dependent on which versions of quantum theory and solutions to the measurement problem are adopted (Bishop and Kronz 1999). In this essay, the relationship between quantum mechanics and sensitive dependence is placed in the general context of nonlinear (...)
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  12.  97
    Whence chemistry?Robert C. Bishop - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 41 (2):171-177.
    Along with exploring some of the necessary conditions for the chemistry of our world given what we know about quantum mechanics, I will also discuss a different reductionist challenge than is usually considered in debates on the relationship of chemistry to physics. Contrary to popular belief, classical physics does not have a reductive relationship to quantum mechanics and some of the reasons why reduction fails between classical and quantum physics are the same as for why reduction fails between chemistry and (...)
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  13.  70
    Arrow of Time in Rigged Hilbert Space Quantum Mechanics.Robert C. Bishop - 2004 - International Journal of Theoretical Physics 43 (7):1675–1687.
    Arno Bohm and Ilya Prigogine's Brussels-Austin Group have been working on the quantum mechanical arrow of time and irreversibility in rigged Hilbert space quantum mechanics. A crucial notion in Bohm's approach is the so-called preparation/registration arrow. An analysis of this arrow and its role in Bohm's theory of scattering is given. Similarly, the Brussels-Austin Group uses an excitation/de-excitation arrow for ordering events, which is also analyzed. The relationship between the two approaches is discussed focusing on their semi-group operators and time (...)
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  14. Determinism and indeterminism.Robert C. Bishop - 2006 - In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Second Edition. pp. 29-35.
    Determinism is a rich and varied concept. At an abstract level of analysis, Jordan Howard Sobel (1998) identifies at least ninety varieties of what determinism could be like. When it comes to thinking about what deterministic laws and theories in physical sciences might be like, the situation is much clearer. There is a criterion by which to judge whether a law–expressed as some form of equation–is deterministic. A theory would then be deterministic just in case all its laws taken as (...)
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  15. Stability Conditions in Contextual Emergence.Harald Atmanspacher & Robert C. Bishop - 2007 - Chaos and Complexity Letters 2:139-150.
    The concept of contextual emergence is proposed as a non-reductive, yet welldefined relation between different levels of description of physical and other systems. It is illustrated for the transition from statistical mechanics to thermodynamical properties such as temperature. Stability conditions are crucial for a rigorous implementation of contingent contexts that are required to understand temperature as an emergent property. It is proposed that such stability conditions are meaningful for contextual emergence beyond physics as well.
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  16.  92
    Anvil or onion? Determinism as a layered concept.Robert C. Bishop - 2005 - Erkenntnis 63 (1):55 - 71.
    Kellert (In the Wake of Chars, University of Chicago press, Chicago, 1993) has argued that Laplacean determinism in classical physics is actually a layered concept, where various properties or layers composing this form of determinism can be peeled away. Here, I argue that a layered conception of determinism is inappropriate and that we should think in terms of different deterministic models applicable to different kinds of systems. The upshot of this analysis is that the notion of state is more closely (...)
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  17.  39
    Is chaos indeterministic?Robert C. Bishop & Frederick M. Kronz - 1999 - In Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara (ed.), Language, Quantum, Music. Springer. pp. 129--141.
    An examination of determinism in the context of chaotic dynamics.
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  18. What is this naturalism stuff all about?Robert C. Bishop - 2009 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 29 (2):108-113.
    Wading into the thicket of science, naturalism, and theism in the context of psychology can seem quite daunting. One prerequisite for avoiding confusions and missteps is to properly distinguishing two forms of naturalism that are logically independent of each other: metaphysical and methodological. Once this underbrush is cleared away, interesting and important questions about psychology’s compatibility with theism, the psychological study of religion and other topics can be fruitfully engaged. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
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  19. Contextual Emergence: Constituents, Context and Meaning.Robert C. Bishop - 2022 - In Shyam Wuppuluri & Ian Stewart (eds.), From Electrons to Elephants and Elections: Saga of Content and Context. Springer. pp. 243-256.
    This chapter provides a gentle introduction to contextual emergence and its implications for the structure of the material world as well as implications for meaning in our world.
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  20.  60
    Overcoming neoliberalism.Frank C. Richardson, Robert C. Bishop & Jacqueline Garcia-Joslin - 2018 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 38 (1):15-28.
    Psychology may have to get seriously political as human aims in living and selfhood itself are increasingly influenced in a deleterious manner by the vicissitudes of living in a neoliberal political economy and one-sided “enterprise culture” (Martin & McLellan, 2013; Sugarman, 2015). This article reviews recent writings of several social critics, including Jackson Lears (2015), Sebastion Junger (2015), Philip Blond (2010), and Christopher Lasch (1995), who richly flesh out the picture of this detrimental state of affairs. We note that many (...)
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  21. Quantum time arrows, semigroups and time-reversal in scattering.Robert C. Bishop - 2005 - International Journal of Theoretical Physics:723-733.
    Two approaches toward the arrow of time for scattering processes have been proposed in rigged Hilbert space quantum mechanics. One, due to Arno Bohm, involves preparations and registrations in laboratory operations and results in two semigroups oriented in the forward direction of time. The other, employed by the Brussels-Austin group, is more general, involving excitations and de-excitations of systems, and apparently results in two semigroups oriented in opposite directions of time. It turns out that these two time arrows can be (...)
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  22.  71
    Free will in absentia: Dennett on free will and determinism.Robert C. Bishop - 2003 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 23 (2):168-183.
    Mark Crooks has given a helpful discussion of Daniel Dennett's "philosophical abolition of mind," adding to the list of reasons why many philosophers jokingly say Dennett should have titled his 1991 book "Consciousness Explained Away". As Crooks argues, Dennett really is committed 'to our phenomenal experience, beliefs, desires, etc. as all being illusory in the strongest possible sense. Yet, when it comes to free will, Dennett fights hard to maintain that free will is something more than an illusion, that it (...)
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  23.  45
    Emergence in context: a treatise in twenty-first century natural philosophy.Robert C. Bishop - 2022 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Edited by Michael Silberstein & Mark Pexton.
    Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how novel things emerge. How can order come out of disorder? This book introduces a new account, contextual emergence, seeking to answer such questions."--Back cover.
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  24.  11
    Science and Theology.Robert C. Bishop - 1993 - Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 5 (1-2):141-162.
    The scientific and theological enterprises share many fundamental assumptions and have methodological similarities, though the two disciplines often have different focuses of investigation. Science seeks to unravel the detailed workings of nature by focusing on the quantitative aspects discemable in the universe. Theology strives to understand the essence, activity, and purposes of God in the universe. These two enterprises are partial views of the multi-faceted reality we call the world that occasionalfy overlap. Therefore, the data of science arui theology should (...)
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  25. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Second Edition.Robert C. Bishop - 2006
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  26.  37
    Hermeneutic Dialogue and Shaping the Landscape of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology: The Work of Frank Richardson.Robert C. Bishop - 2021 - London: Routledge.
    This volume introduces the methodological value of hermeneutic dialogue in the field of theoretical and philosophical psychology. It reflects on the works of Frank Richardson, who has made, and continues to make, seminal contributions to the field, as well as having influenced the work of many of the practitioners engaged in this field today. Each chapter explores a major topic of hermeneutic dialogue and is authored by a scholar whose work has been directly impacted by Richardson's life and research. The (...)
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  27.  33
    Practices, Power, and Cultural Ideals.Frank C. Richardson & Robert C. Bishop - 2004 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 24 (2):179-195.
    This article and the following ones by Slife and Westerman represent a coordinated effort on the authors' part to begin to mine the resources of what has been termed the "practice turn in contemporary theory" for psychology. The liberal approach tends to focus on a fear of power and how it can corrupt our best ideals, while the postmodernist tends to focus on a fascination with power flowing through the social and institutional expressions of these very ideals. Given modern Western (...)
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  28.  16
    Jaki, Stanley L. Science and Creation. [REVIEW]Robert C. Bishop - 1990 - Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 2 (1-2):195-196.
  29.  29
    Review of The evolution of ethics: Human sociality and the emergence of ethical mindedness. [REVIEW]Robert C. Bishop - 2016 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 36 (3):190-197.