Emergence : a philosophical account / Paul Humphreys.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Humphreys, Paul, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Emergence (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

xx, 288 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Summary:

Emergency develops a novel account of diachronic ontological emergence called transformation emergence and locates it is an established historical framework. The author shows how many problems affecting ontological emergence result from a dominant but inappropriate metaphysical tradition and provides a comprehensive assessment of current theories of emergence. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Basic Features of Emergence 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.1.1 The General Approach 3

1.2 A General Strategy 5

1.2.1 Method 6

1.2.2 Models and Reality 8

1.3 Generative Atomism 11

1.3.1 An Aside on Eddington's Tables 15

1.3.2 Generalizations 17

1.4 Checkers World 18

1.5 Atomism 21

1.5.1 Immutability 21

1.5.2 Indivisibility 22

1.5.3 Distinguishability 24

1.5.4 What Counts as an Atom? 24

1.6 Criteria for Emergence 26

1.6.1 The First Feature: Emergence Is Relational 27

1.6.2 The Second and Third Features: Novelty and Autonomy 29

1.6.3 Holism 35

1.7 A Taxonomy for Emergence 37

1.7.1 Inferential Emergence: Emergence as Lack of Derivability 39

1.7.2 Conceptual Emergence 40

1.7.3 Ontological Emergence 41

1.7.4 The Temporal Taxonomy 43

1.8 Examples of Emergence 44

1.9 Other Approaches to Emergence 50

1.9.1 Emergence as Unexplain ability 51

1.9.2 Nomological Emergence 52

1.9.3 Emergence as a Result of Essential Interactions 52

1.9.4 Emergence as Undefinability 53

1.10 The Rarity Heuristic 54

2 Ontological Emergence 56

2.1 Preliminaries 56

2.1.1 A Prima Facie but Probably Not Genuine Example of Transformational Emergence 57

2.2 Transformational Emergence 60

2.2.1 A Possible Example of Transformational Emergence 66

2.3 Fusion Emergence 70

2.3.1 The Money Example: Fusion Without Emergence 72

2.3.2 The Probability Example: Failure of Supervenience Without Fusion 73

2.3.3 The Representation of Fusion 74

2.3.4 Defusion 78

2.3.5 Examples 81

2.4 Arguments Against Fusion Emergence 86

2.5 The Origins of the Universe Argument 91

3 Ancestors and Relatives 94

3.1 J. S. Mill and C. D. Broad on Emergence 94

3.2 Internal and External Relations 103

3.2.1 G.E. Moore 107

3.2.2 Lewis's Definitions 112

3.2.3 Relationalism, Holism, and Interactions 116

3.2.4 Appendix 117

3.3 Levels 120

3.4 Downward Causation 126

3.4.1 Cube World 128

3.5 Holism, Contextualism, and Transformation 130

3.5.1 Transformation Revisited 135

3.5.2 Contextualism and Compositionality 138

3.5.3 Generative Atomism Again 141

4 Inferential Emergence 144

4.1 A Definition 144

4.2 Pattern Emergence 150

4.2.1 Nonrandomness 152

4.2.2 Self-Organization 153

4.2.3 Generation and Stability 155

4.2.4 Pattern Emergence Need Not Be Discontinuous 157

4.2.5 Pattern Emergence Is Historical 160

4.2.6 Properties of Pattern Emergence 161

4.2.7 Multiple Instantiability and Multiple Readability 162

4.3 Weak Emergence 165

4.3.1 Illustrations: Bird Flocking and Trafficjams 171

4.3.2 Assessment 173

4.3.3 Weak Emergence as Explanatory Incompressibility 175

4.3.4 Weak Emergence and Explanation 177

5 Conceptual Emergence 180

5.1 Conceptual Innovation 180

5.2 Reduction and Construction 184

5.2.1 A Turn to Ontology 188

5.3 Philosophical Counterparts to Constructionism 190

5.4 Functional Reduction 193

6 Philosophical Topics Related to Emergence 198

6.1 Physicalism 198

6.1.1 Motivations for Physicalism 200

6.1.2 Limit Physics 203

6.2 Emergence as Supervenience 205

6.2.1 Nomological Supervenience 207

6.2.2 Why Use Supervenience? 209

6.2.3 Supervenience Definitions 213

6.2.4 Nomological or Logical Necessitation? 215

6.2.5 Supervenience Is Not Explanatory 217

6.2.6 Humean Supervenience 218

6.3 Fundamentally 220

6.4 Multiple Readability 227

6.4.1 Token versus Type Identity 231

6.5 Compositionality and Aggregativity 234

6.5.1 A Suggested Amendment to the Non-Aggregativity Approach 239

6.6 Emergence as Nonstructural Properties 240

6.6.1 The Relation of Nonstructural Properties to Transformational Emergence 244

6.7 Properties and Objects 246

7 Scientific Topics Related to Emergence 249

7.1 An Example: Ferromagnetism 249

7.1.1 Basic Features of Ferromagnetism 250

7.1.2 The Status of Ferromagnetism as an Emergent Phenomenon 254

7.1.3 Models, Possibilities, and Actuality 256

7.2 Linearity, Nonlinearity, and Complexity 258

7.2.1 Linearity 259

7.2.2 Complexity Theory 261

7.3 Dynamical Systems 264.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-280) and index.

ISBN:

9780190620325

0190620323

OCLC:

949911639