In this article I address the issue of the ontological conditions of possibility for a naturalistic notion of emergence, trying to determine its fundamental differences from the atomist, vitalist, preformationist and potentialist alternatives. I will argue that a naturalistic notion of ontological emergence can only succeed if we explicitly refuse the atomistic fundamental ontological postulate that asserts that every entity is endowed with a set of absolutely intrinsic properties, being qualitatively immutable through its extrinsic relations. (...) Furthermore, it will be shown that, ironically enough, this metaphysical assumption is implicitly shared by all the above mentioned alternatives to Emergentism. The current article concludes that the notion of organization by itself is not enough, and that ontological emergence can only be justified by assuming a relational ontological perspective that, in opposition both to atomism and holism, defends that the existence-conditions, the identity and the causal behavior of any emergent systemic property can only be conceived, and explained, as constructed by and through specific networks of qualitatively transformative relational processes that occur between the system’s components and between the system and its environment. Additionally, I try to explain how one can make sense of the idea that an emergent phenomenon is both dependent on, and autonomous from, its emergence base. (shrink)

In this essay, I aim to address the two related problems faced by ontological emergence and propose a solution. First, I shall briefly outline the concept of emergence, the distinction between ontological and epistemological emergence, as well as the distinction between synchronic and diachronic emergence, and focus mainly on synchronic ontological emergence. Second, I shall discuss the two related problems faced by synchronic ontological emergence—configurational forces and downward causation. Third, I (...) shall present a solution to these problems—affirming ontological emergence but denying vertical causation. Last, I shall address objections to the ontological emergence without vertical causation view. (shrink)

We survey and clarify some recent appearances of the term ‘emergence’. We distinguish epistemological emergence, which is merely a limitation of descriptive apparatus, from ontological emergence, which should involve causal features of a whole system not reducible to the properties of its parts, thus implying the failure of part/whole reductionism and of mereological supervenience for that system. Are there actually any plausible cases of the latter among the numerous and various mentions of ‘emergence’ in the (...) recent literature? Quantum mechanics seems to offer one, in the Bell properties of entangled particles, but other apparently promising candidates, such as non‐linear dynamical systems investigated by complexity studies and chaos theory, seem on careful analysis to display only epistemological emergence. We examine the consequences for physicalism of admitting ontological emergence in the micro‐physical. (shrink)

Providing empirically supportable instances of ontological emergence is notoriously difficult. Typically, the literature has focused on two possible sources. The first is the mind and consciousness; the second is within physics, and more specifically certain quantum effects. In this paper, I wish to suggest that the literature has overlooked a further possible instance of emergence, taken from the special science of linguistics. In particular, I will focus on the property of truth-evaluability, taken to be a property of (...) sentences as created by the language faculty within human minds (or brains). The claim will not be as strong as to suggest that the linguistic data and theories prove emergence. Rather the dialectical aim here is to say that we have some good reasons (even if not conclusive reasons) to think that the property is emergent. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article develops the ontological doctrine of naturalistic emergence, detailing three distinct but related types of emergent structures. It thus provides a coherent framework for making sense of the reality of human freedom, consistent with the operative determinism of natural science. This possibility emerges from taking seriously the implications of the reality of non-separability and decoherence, the significance of conservation laws, and the causal significance of systemic properties. The metaphysics of ontological emergence that is thus (...) suggested reveals the ontological limitations of Aristotelian logic, Cartesian reduction, and their modern epigoni. Specific attention is paid to the formulations of scientific reductionism by E. O. Wilson with his theory of “consilience,” and to Jaegwon Kim’s critique of the doctrine of emergence. (shrink)

It is often helpful in metaphysics to reflect upon the principles that govern how existence claims are made in logic and mathematics. Consider, for example, the different ways in which mathematicians construct inductive definitions. In order to provide an inductive definition of a class of mathematical entities, one must first define a base class and then stipulate further conditions for inclusion by reference to the properties of members of the base class. These conditions can be deflationary, so that the target (...) class is a subclass of the base class, or inflationary, so that the base class is an important subclass of the target class. For example, in defining the set of well-formed sentences of first order logic, one can begin with the set of all possible strings and, in a deflationary manner, exclude the nonsentences. Or one can begin with the set of atomic formulae, and in an inflationary manner, build more complicated sentences out of the atomic formulae. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of emergence are based on supervenience, with supervenience being an ontologically synchronic relation of determination. This conception of emergence as a relation of supervenience, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in self-organizing and nonlinear dynamical systems, including distributed cognitive systems. In these dynamical systems, an emergent property is ontological and diachronic.

This paper focuses on two issues related to ontological emergence: whether it is a coherent notion, and its relation to the doctrine of physicalism. First, it is argued that ontological emergence is best understood as a thesis relying on three fundamental tenets claiming that emergents are basic, genuinely causal, and determined by the physical realm. The paper elucidates the roles of these tenets, and introduces an interpretation that is able to resolve any apparent contradiction between the (...) tenets, thereby supporting the claim that the commitments of ontological emergence form a consistent view. The proposed understanding also hints that telling physicalism and emergentism apart is not a problem even if one subscribes to a supervenience-based formulation of physicalism. The difference in the modal strength of the supervenience relation physicalism and emergentism endorse readily distinguishes them – the former is committed to metaphysical determination whereas the latter to nomological determination. However, in a recent paper, Jessica Wilson has posed an objection to this way of differentiating physicalism from emergentism on the ground that the metaphysical/nomological distinction cannot be drawn in this context. The second part of this paper introduces Wilson's objection, and argues in detail that it fails to disqualify the modal strength-based distinction. (shrink)

Ontological emergentists about consciousness maintain that phenomenal properties are ontologically fundamental properties that are nonetheless non-basic: they emerge from reality only once the ultimate material constituents of reality (the “UPCs”) are suitable arranged. Ontological emergentism has been challenged on the grounds that it is insufficiently explanatory. In this essay, I develop the version of ontological emergentism I take to be the most explanatorily promising—the causal theory of ontological emergence—in light of four challenges: The Collaboration Problem (...) (how do UPCs jointly manifest their collective consciousness-generating power?); The Threshold Problem: (under what circumstances do UPCs jointly manifest their collective consciousness-generating power?); The Subject Problem (which object is the bearer of emergent phenomenal states?); and The Specificity Problem (what determines which specific phenomenal state is generated?) In response to these challenges, I arrive at the following picture of ontological emergence. When UPCs that are parts of a suitably complex sensorimotor system become entangled, they jointly manifest a subject-forming power (where subjects are deeply unified composites of the UPCs responsible for generating them). The emergent subjects thereby formed exhibit a novel causal power: the power to generate phenomenal states, which they themselves instantiate: states that “interpret” what is going on in the brain. (shrink)

It is becoming increasingly common to find phenomena described as emergent. There are two sorts of philosophical analysis of emergence. Ontological analyses ground emergence in real, distinct, emergent properties. Epistemological analyses deny emergent properties and stress instead facts about our epistemic status. I review a standard worry for ontological analyses of emergence, that they entail a surfeit of metaphysics, and find that it can easily be sidestepped. I go on to present a new worry, that (...) ontological emergentism entails a highly implausible ontology, which is harder for the ontological emergentist to avoid. (shrink)

While ontic structural realism (OSR) has been a central topic in contemporary philosophy of science, the relation between OSR and the concept of emergence has received little attention. We will argue that OSR is fully compatible with emergentism. The denial of ontological emergence requires additional assumptions that, strictly speaking, go beyond OSR. We call these _physicalist closure assumptions._ We will explain these assumptions and show that they are independent of the central commitments of OSR and inconsistent with (...) its core goals. Recognizing the compatibility of OSR and ontological emergence may contribute to the solution of ontological puzzles in physics while offering new ways to achieve the goals that advocates of OSR set for their view. (shrink)

In the present article, I propose to give a positive characterization of ontological emergence from a relational perspective that, in opposition both to atomism and to holism, defends that the existence-conditions, the identity and the behavior or causal role of any emergent entity are to be conceived, and explained, as constructed by diverse systems of qualitatively transformative relations. I argue that from this relational perspective, the notion of emergence can be seen as ontologically and epistemologically coherent and (...) significant. Finally, I try to show in what sense, and to what extent, the Nonlinear Quantum Physics, as developed by Croca and his team, expresses such a relational and emergentist view of physical reality. (shrink)

“Ontological emergence” of inherent high-level properties with causal powers is witnessed nowhere. A non-substantialist conception of emergence works much better. It allows downward causation, provided our concept of causality is transformed accordingly.

In a scientific context, ontological commitments should be considered as supervenient over accepted scientific theories. This implies that the primarily ontological notions of reduction and emergence of entities of different kinds should be reformulated in terms of relations between existing empirical theories. For this, in turn, it is most convenient to employ a model-theoretic view of scientific theories: the identity criterion of a scientific theory is essentially given by a class of models. Accordingly, reduction and emergence (...) are to be seen as particular kinds of relations between (some) models of different theories that subsume the same (or a similar) “experiential field”. The set-theoretical notion of an echelon-set proves to be crucial for this purpose: The domains in the models of the reduced theory are echelon-sets over the domains of the reducing theory. Finally, it is argued that emergence may plausibly be interpreted as akin to but weaker than reduction. (shrink)

The vitalism/reductionism debate in the life sciences shows that the idea of emergence as something principally unexplainable will often be falsified by the development of science. Nevertheless, the concept of emergence keeps reappearing in various sciences, and cannot easily be dispensed with in an evolutionary world-view. We argue that what is needed is an ontological nonreductionist theory of levels of reality which includes a concept of emergence, and which can support an evolutionary account of the origin (...) of levels. Classical explication of emergence as “the creation of new properties” is discussed critically, and specific distinctions between various kinds of emergence are introduced for the purpose of developing an ontology of levels, framed in a materialistic and evolutionary perspective. A concept of the relation between levels as being inclusive is suggested, permitting the “local” existence of different ontologies. We identify, as a working hypothesis, four primary levels and explicate their nonhomomorphic interlevel relations. Explainability of emergence in relation to determinism and predictability is considered. Recent research in self-organizing non-linear dynamical systems represents a revival of the scientific study of emergence, and we argue that these recent developments can be seen as a step toward a final “devitalisation” of emergence. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the ontological interpretation of the concepts of reduction and emergence is often misleading in the philosophy of science and should nearly always be eschewed in favor of an epistemological interpretation. As a paradigm case, an example is drawn from the philosophy of chemistry to illustrate the drawbacks of “ontological reduction” and “ontological emergence,” and the virtues of an epistemological interpretation of these concepts.

To have an ontology is to interpret a world. In this paper we argue that the brain, viewed as a representational system aimed at interpreting our world, possesses an ontology too. It creates primitives and makes existence assumptions. It decomposes target space in a way that exhibits a certain invariance, which in turn is functionally significant. We will investigate which are the functional regularities guiding this decomposition process, by answering to the following questions: What are the explicit and implicit assumptions (...) about the structure of reality, which at the same time shape the causal profile of the brain's motor output and its representational deep structure, in particular of the conscious mind arising from it (its ''phenomenal output'')? How do they constrain high-level phenomena like conscious experience, the emergence of a first-person perspective, or social cognition? By reviewing a series of neuroscientific results and integrating them with a wider philosophical perspective, we will emphasize the contribution the motor system makes to this process. As it will be shown, the motor system constructs goals, actions, and intending selves as basic constituents of the world it interprets. It does so by assigning a single, unified causal role to them. Empirical evidence demonstrates that the brain models movements and action goals in terms of multimodal representations of organism-object-relations. Under a representationalist analysis, this process can be conceived of as an internal, dynamic representation of the intentionality-relation itself. We will show how such a complex form of representational content, once it is in place, can later function as a functional building block for social cognition and for a more complex, consciously experienced representation of the first-person perspective as well. (shrink)

John Searle has mistakenly claimed that emergence is the central concept in the account of social ontology defended by Tony Lawson, the central figure in the project now regularly referred to as Cambridge Social Ontology. This is not the case. Rather, if any concept can be considered central for Lawson, it is organisation. In this paper, I explain how Searle could misunderstand Lawson and, in doing so, I bring out the importance of organisation for understanding how phenomena, both social (...) and non-social, are constituted. (shrink)

This article examines ontological/dynamical aspects of emergence, specifically the micro-macro relation in cases of universal behavior. I discuss superconductivity as an emergent phenomenon, showing why microphysical features such as Cooper pairing are not necessary for deriving characteristic properties such as infinite conductivity. I claim that the difficulties surrounding the thermodynamic limit in explaining phase transitions can be countered by showing how renormalization group techniques facilitate an understanding of the physics behind the mathematics, enabling us to clarify epistemic and (...) ontological aspects of emergence. I close with a discussion of the impact of these issues for questions concerning natural kinds. (shrink)

Scientific realists don’t standardly discriminate between, say, biology and fundamental physics when deciding whether the evidence and explanatory power warrant the inclusion of new entities in our ontology. As such, scientific realists are committed to a lush rainforest of special science kinds (Ross, 2000). Viruses certainly inhabit this rainforest – their explanatory power is overwhelming – but viruses’ properties can be explained from the bottom up: reductive explanations involving amino acids are generally available. However, reduction has often been taken to (...) lead to a metaphysical downgrading, so how can viruses keep their place in the rainforest? In this paper, we show how the inhabitants of the rainforest can be inoculated against the eliminative threat of reduction: by demonstrating that they are emergent. According to our account, emergence involves a screening off condition as well as novelty. We go on to demonstrate that this account of emergence, which is compatible with theoretical reducibility, satisfies common intuitions concerning what should and shouldn’t count as real: viruses are emergent, as are trout and turkeys, but philosophically gerrymandered objects like trout-turkeys do not qualify. (shrink)

The coupling of 'self and other' as well as the issues regarding intersubjectivity have been central topics in modern Japanese philosophy. The dominant views are critical of the Cartesian formulation , but the Japanese philosophers drew their conclusions also based on their own insights into Japanese culture and language. In this paper I would like to explore this theme in two of the leading modern Japanese philosophers - Kitaro Nishida and Tetsuro Watsuji . I do not make a causal claim (...) that Japanese culture or language was responsible for these thinkers' philosophy, although without a doubt they were strong influences. The point rather is to show an interesting convergence of concerns regarding the fundamental nature of the relation between the self and others across different cultures and intellectual traditions, and to clarify further the ontological structure of the self-other relation. After the examination, the thesis I would like to defend here is the following: Intersubjectivity is indeed a condition, rather than an accident, of the structure of lived experiences as such but this relation also requires at the same time the recognition that the Other must remain a true negation-in-relation to the self. Let me first turn to Watsuji, although chronologically he was 20 years junior and was a student of Nishida, since Watsuji's phenomenology deals more directly with the topic of intersubjectivity. I will then turn to Nishida's broader ontological considerations. (shrink)

The emergence of the new information economy hascomplicated jurisdictional issues in commerce andcrime. Many of these difficulties are simplyextensions of problems that arose due to other media.Telephones and fax machines had already complicatedjurists'' determinations of applicable laws. Evenbefore the Internet, contracts were often negotiatedwithout any face-to-face contact – entirely bytelephone and fax. Where is such a contractnegotiated? The answer to this question is critical toany litigation that may arise over such contracts. Thelaws of contract are often quite different from (...) onejurisdiction to the next.The Internet has brought with it new forms ofcommunication which make determining the loci of actseven more complicated. Where are contracts negotiatedwhen they are negotiated in cyberspace? Business isbeing conducted in chat rooms, on web sites, andthrough e-mail. Each of these is technically distinctfrom telephones and fax machines. More importantly,these tools seem ontologically different, in varyingdegrees, from traditional methods of communication.The question is, are these ontological differencessufficient to warrant new legal notions ofjurisdiction in cyberspace?Only a thorough ontological analysis of the parts ofcyberspace and acts ``in'''' it can reveal the answers tothe legal questions posed by this new medium.Traditional legal analyses have relied, in part, on acrude legal ontology. That is, courts have grappledwith notions of the topology and mereology of theworld and legal objects when considering questions ofjurisdiction. There is a simpler, theoretically soundmethod for determining legal jurisdiction which isbased upon the notion of ``purposeful direction,'''' andwhich treats computer-mediated transactions as justanother form of communication. I will explore thatmethod below. (shrink)

Emergence develops a novel account of diachronic ontological emergence called transformational emergence and locates it in 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.

I challenge the usual approach of defining emergence in terms of properties of wholes “emerging” upon properties of parts. This approach indeed fails to meet the requirement of nontriviality, since it renders a bunch of ordinary properties emergent; however, by defining emergence as the incompressibility of a simulation process, we have an objective meaning of emergence because the difference between the processes satisfying the incompressibility criterion and the other processes does not depend on our cognitive abilities. Finally, (...) this definition fulfills the nontriviality and the scientific‐adequacy requirements better than the combinatorial approach, emergence here being a predicate of processes rather than of properties. †To contact the author, please write to: Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (CNRS/Université Paris I Sorbonne), 13 rue du Four 75006, Paris; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead introduces in Process and Reality the notion that the ?philosophy of organism is a cell-theory of actuality.? I argue here that the most promising venue for a concordance with process ontology vis-à-vis extant physical theory includes the notions of dynamical and ontological emergence in the physical sciences, as described in Silberstein and McGeever (1999) as well as in Kronz and Tiehen (2002). Here I draw on my previous claims (1997, 2005, 2006) to show in more (...) general terms how process ontology provides a more unified characterization of ontological and dynamical emergence. (shrink)

This important book provides detailed critiques of the method of transcendental argumentation and the transcendental realist account of the concept of causal power that are among the core tenets of the bhaskarian version of critical realism. Kaidesoja also assesses the notions of human agency, social structure and emergence that have been advanced by prominent critical realists, including Roy Bhaskar, Margaret Archer and Tony Lawson. The main line of argument in this context indicates that the uses of these concepts in (...) critical realism involve ambiguities and problematic anti-naturalist presuppositions. -/- As a whole, these arguments are intended to show that to avoid these ambiguities and problems, critical realist social ontology should be naturalized. This not only means that transcendental arguments for ontological doctrines are firmly rejected and the notion of causal power interpreted in a non-transcendental realist way. Naturalization of the critical realist social ontology also entails that many of the core concepts of this ontology should be modified so that attention is paid to the ontological presuppositions of various non-positivist explanatory methods and research practices in the current social sciences as well as to new approaches in recent cognitive and neurosciences. -/- In addition of providing a detailed critique of the original critical realism, the book develops a naturalized version of the critical realist social ontology that is relevant to current explanatory practices in the social sciences. In building this ontology, Kaidesoja selectively draws on Mario Bunge’s systemic and emergentist social ontology, William Wimsatt’s gradual notion of ontological emergence and some recent approaches in cognitive science (i.e. embodied, situated and distributed cognition). This naturalized social ontology rejects transcendental arguments in favor of naturalized arguments and restricts the uses of the notion of causal power to concrete systems, including social systems of various kinds. It is also compatible with a naturalized version of scientific realism as well as many successful explanatory practices in the current social sciences. By employing the conceptual resources of this ontology, Kaidesoja explicates many of the basic concepts of social ontology and social theory, including social system, social mechanism, social structure, social class and social status. (shrink)

This paper is an exposition and comparison between two views concerning fundamental ontology in the context of the Mind-Body Problem: physicalism and emergent property dualism. I assess the pros and cons of each position and argue that physicalism provides an overall more plausible metaphysics.

Despite an attempt to break with the hierarchical picture in traditional emergentist thought, non-standard accounts of emergence are often still committed to a premise that ontology is prior to epistemology. This paper aims to topple this last remnant of the traditional hierarchy by explicating a pragmatic view of emergence based on John Dewey’s work. Dewey argued that the traditional notion of ontology is premised on a view of existence as complete. Through a discussion of Dewey’s work it is (...) argued that this premise results in a process of reification that unduly excludes from ontology many precarious and indeterminate aspects involved both in everyday life and in philosophic and scientific inquiry. Building on a recent explication of transformational emergence the paper proposes a diachronic and non-hierarchical account of emergence, called pragmatic emergence. According to that account the relation between ontology and epistemology is a temporally reciprocal one. This means that ontological and epistemological features co-determine each other over time. Determinacy and continuity become historical features of a multitude of unfinished processes that we view from within. (shrink)

In this article, I examine Luhmann’s, Bunge’s and others’ views on emergence, and argue that Luhmann’s epistemological construal of emergence in terms of Totalausschluss (total exclusion) is both ontologically flawed and detrimental to an appropriate understanding of the distinctive features of social emergence. By contrast, Bunge’s rational emergentism, his CESM model, and Wimsatt’s characterization of emergence as nonaggregativity provide a useful framework to investigate emergence. While researchers in the field of social theory and sociology tend (...) to regard Luhmann as the sole representative of systems theory, the latter has been characterized by its diversity, and the writings of such systems theorists as Mario Bunge deserve more (critical) attention from social researchers than they receive at present. Finally, this article suggests that the perennial debate over methodological individualism and holism in social science may make real progress if such ambiguous terms as reduction and reductionism are elucidated before they are employed. (shrink)

I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the doctrine that only present objects exist. Then, I outline and defend a form of spacetime realism that I call event substantivalism. I propose an ontological theory for the emergence of spacetime from more basic entities. Finally, I argue that a relational theory of pre-geometric entities can (...) give rise to substantival spacetime in such a way that relationism and substantivalism are not necessarily opposed positions, but rather complementary. In an appendix I give axiomatic formulations of my ontological views. (shrink)

A categorical ontology of space and time is presented for emergent biosystems, super-complex dynamics, evolution and human consciousness. Relational structures of organisms and the human mind are naturally represented in non-abelian categories and higher dimensional algebra. The ascent of man and other organisms through adaptation, evolution and social co-evolution is viewed in categorical terms as variable biogroupoid representations of evolving species. The unifying theme of local-to-global approaches to organismic development, evolution and human consciousness leads to novel patterns of relations that (...) emerge in super- and ultra- complex systems in terms of colimits of biogroupoids, and more generally, as compositions of local procedures to be defined in terms of locally Lie groupoids. Solutions to such local-to-global problems in highly complex systems with ‘broken symmetry’ may be found with the help of generalized van Kampen theorems in algebraic topology such as the Higher Homotopy van Kampen theorem (HHvKT). Primordial organism structures are predicted from the simplest metabolic-repair systems extended to self-replication through autocatalytic reactions. The intrinsic dynamic ‘asymmetry’ of genetic networks in organismic development and evolution is investigated in terms of categories of many-valued, Łukasiewicz–Moisil logic algebras and then compared with those obtained for (non-commutative) quantum logics. The claim is defended in this essay that human consciousness is unique and should be viewed as an ultra-complex, global process of processes. The emergence of consciousness and its existence seem dependent upon an extremely complex structural and functional unit with an asymmetric network topology and connectivities—the human brain—that developed through societal co-evolution, elaborate language/symbolic communication and ‘virtual’, higher dimensional, non-commutative processes involving separate space and time perceptions. Philosophical theories of the mind are approached from the theory of levels and ultra-complexity viewpoints which throw new light on previous representational hypotheses and proposed semantic models in cognitive science. Anticipatory systems and complex causality at the top levels of reality are also discussed in the context of the ontological theory of levels with its complex/entangled/intertwined ramifications in psychology, sociology and ecology. The presence of strange attractors in modern society dynamics gives rise to very serious concerns for the future of mankind and the continued persistence of a multi-stable biosphere. A paradigm shift towards non-commutative, or non-Abelian, theories of highly complex dynamics is suggested to unfold now in physics, mathematics, life and cognitive sciences, thus leading to the realizations of higher dimensional algebras in neurosciences and psychology, as well as in human genomics, bioinformatics and interactomics. (shrink)

In this article, I examine Luhmann’s, Bunge’s and others’ views on emergence, and argue that Luhmann’s epistemological construal of emergence in terms of Totalausschluss (total exclusion) is both ontologically flawed and detrimental to an appropriate understanding of the distinctive features of social emergence. By contrast, Bunge’s rational emergentism, his CESM model, and Wimsatt’s characterization of emergence as nonaggregativity provide a useful framework to investigate emergence. While researchers in the field of social theory and sociology tend (...) to regard Luhmann as the sole representative of systems theory, the latter has been characterized by its diversity, and the writings of such systems theorists as Mario Bunge deserve more (critical) attention from social researchers than they receive at present. Finally, this article suggests that the perennial debate over methodological individualism and holism in social science may make real progress if such ambiguous terms as reduction and reductionism are elucidated before they are employed. (shrink)

This paper provides an introduction to the history of the concept of “emerging infectious diseases” (EID) and reflects on how humanities and social science scholars have interacted with it. It starts with a chronological outline of the coinage of the concept in the early 1990s in the wake of the shocks provoked by Ebola and HIV/AIDS, which disrupted the idea that the West was transitioning from a period of infectious diseases to one of chronic diseases. We argue that humanities and (...) social science scholars in disciplines such as history, anthropology, STS, and literature studies have critically explored the concept, showing how entrenched it was in the perceptions of the US and Europe about threats posed by the rest of the globe. Moreover, we explore how scholars in the humanities have used the EID concept to comment on contemporary realities and mobilized it to create dialogues with scientists, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, we explore how the growing contemporary interest in EID has pushed historians to research the ontological and epistemological factors that enabled the “emergence” of diseases long before the invention of the EID concept, such as plague, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness, as well as the factors that transformed these and other emerging diseases into pandemics. We conclude by outlining a few neglected factors in the EID literature that could be addressed: the circulation and reception of the concept outside of the West, the examination of EID as a problem for wild animals and not just for humans, and global histories of disease emergence as an epistemological and social process. (shrink)

In the past half century, the theory of the firm has become a specific and prolific research field. However, the social ontology of this central institution of capitalism has never truly been the subject of investigation. I consider this negligence harmful for organizational economics and management and, more broadly, for the social sciences, notably because the first and central question raised by the theory of the firm relates to its nature: What is a firm? For this reason, I propose some (...) novel considerations for a social ontology of the firm by focusing on social emergence, reconstitution, the two-level institutional logic of the firm, complex organizational dynamics and interacting mechanisms, and power. (shrink)

An overview of the following three related papers in this issue presents the Emergence of Highly Complex Systems such as living organisms, man, society and the human mind from the viewpoint of the current Ontological Theory of Levels. The ontology of spacetime structures in the Universe is discussed beginning with the quantum level; then, the striking emergence of the higher levels of reality is examined from a categorical—relational and logical viewpoint. The ontological problems and methodology aspects (...) discussed in the first two papers are followed by a rigorous paper based on Category Theory, Algebraic Topology and Logic that provides a conceptual and mathematical basis for a Categorical Ontology Theory of Levels. The essential links and relationships between the following three papers of this issue are pointed out, and further possible developments are being considered. (shrink)

This paper deals with the questions of emergence and complex (mental and social) systems and with downward determination from the viewpoint of perspectival realism. These are issues concerning the foundations of the human sciences, generally speaking, and particularly psychology and sociology. A criterion is put forward, which distinguish metaphysicalfrom ontological (conceptual) problems, and the notions of complex, hierarchic system and causation that would be suitable for those that defend emergence and perspectivist foundations of the human sciences are (...) discussed. Este artigo trata das questões da emergência de sistemas complexos (mentais e sociais) e da determinação descendente do ponto de vista do realismo perspectivista. Essas são questões sobre os fundamentos das ciências humanas em geral e, em particular, da psicologia e da sociologia. É proposto um critério para distinguir problemas metafísicos de problemas ontológicos (ou conceituais), e são discutidas as noções de sistema complexo hierárquico e de causação que seriam adequadas para uma fundamentação emergentista e perspectivista das ciências humanas. (shrink)

We show that a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the notion of event is defined without reference to measurement or observers, allows to construct a quantum general ontology based on systems, states and events. Unlike the Copenhagen interpretation, it does not resort to elements of a classical ontology. The quantum ontology in turn allows us to recognize that a typical behavior of quantum systems exhibits strong emergence and ontological non-reducibility. Such phenomena are not exceptional but natural, (...) and are rooted in the basic mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Motivated by the seeming structure of the sciences, metaphysical emergence combines broadly synchronic dependence coupled with some degree of ontological and causal autonomy. Reflecting the diverse, frequently incompatible interpretations of the notions of dependence and autonomy, however, accounts of emergence diverge into a bewildering variety. Here I argue that much of this apparent diversity is superficial. I first argue, by attention to the problem of higher-level causation, that two and only two strategies for addressing this problem accommodate (...) the genuine emergence of special science entities. These strategies in turn suggest two distinct schema for metaphysical emergence---'Weak' and 'Strong' emergence, respectively. Each schema imposes a condition on the powers of entities taken to be emergent: Strong emergence requires that higher-level features have more token powers than their dependence base features, whereas Weak emergence requires that higher-level features have a proper subset of the token powers of their dependence base features. Importantly, the notion of “power” at issue here is metaphysically neutral, primarily reflecting commitment just to the plausible thesis that what causes an entity may bring about are associated with how the entity is---that is, with its features. (shrink)

Agent-Based Models are useful to describe and understand social, economic and spatial systems' dynamics. But, beside the facilities which this methodology offers, evaluation and comparison of simulation models are sometimes problematic. A rigorous conceptual frame needs to be developed. This is in order to ensure the coherence in the chain linking at the one extreme the scientist's hypotheses about the modeled phenomenon and at the other the structure of rules in the computer program. This also systematizes the model design from (...) the thematician conceptual framework as well. The aim is to reflect upon the role that a well defined ontology, based on the crossing of the philosophical and the computer science insights, can play to solve such questions and help the model building. We analyze different conceptions of ontology, introduce the 'ontological test' and show its usefulness to compare models. Then we focus on the model building and show the place of a systematic ABM ontology. The latter process is situated within a larger framework called the 'knowledge framework' in which not only the ontologies but also the notions of theory, model and empirical data take place. At last the relation between emergence and ontology is discussed. (shrink)

Natural language processing is a critical part of the digital transformation. NLP enables user-friendly interactions between machine and human by making computers understand human languages. Intelligent chatbot is an essential application of NLP to allow understanding of users’ utterance and responding in understandable sentences for specific applications simulating human-to-human conversations and interactions for problem solving or Q&As. This research studies emerging technologies for NLP-enabled intelligent chatbot development using a systematic patent analytic approach. Some intelligent text-mining techniques are applied, including document (...) term frequency analysis for key terminology extractions, clustering method for identifying the subdomains, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation for finding the key topics of patent set. This research utilizes the Derwent Innovation database as the main source for global intelligent chatbot patent retrievals. (shrink)

The present article constitutes an attempt at a review of a few selected questions related to the complexity paradigm and its implications for research on cognition, especially within the so-called ecological approach framework. I propose several theses, among others concerning the two contrary tendencies within the dominant methodology (the propensity to search for simplicity and the growing emphasis on recognizing complexity), as well as the ontological consequences of the phenomenon under discussion (ontological emergence and processual emergentism).

Eco-Marxism presents a debate between two theoretical schools: metabolic rift theory, developed by John Foster and others, and world-ecology, proposed by Jason W. Moore. The debate refers ultimately to ontology, more precisely to the relation between society and nature. Critical realism plays a central role as the philosophical underlabouring for metabolic rift theory and has implications regarding the Anthropocene/Capitalocene debate as well. Reviewing the debate through CR categories provides clarity about the specifically social character of the causes of ecological disruptions. (...) Using CR, metabolic rift theorists could explain the interdisciplinary character of their analyses. By distinguishing between real transfactual mechanisms and their actual interaction in open systems, I intend to show that neither metabolic rift theory, nor its interdisciplinary approach to the Anthropocene, involve Cartesian Dualism, as Moore claims. World-Ecology provides an alternative historical account of capitalism's environmental history, but it does not critically replace metabolic rift theory. (shrink)

Although the interest about emergence has grown during the last years, there does not seem to be consensus on whether it is a non-trivial and interesting notion and whether the concept of reduction is relevant to its characterization. Another key issue is whether emergence should be understood as an epistemic notion or if there is a plausible ontological concept of emergence. The aim of this work is to propose an epistemic notion of contextual emergence on (...) the basis of which one may tackle those issues. Resumen Aunque el interés en torno a la emergencia ha crecido durante los últimos años, no parece haber un consenso sobre si es una noción no trivial e interesante ni sobre si el concepto de reducción es relevante para su caracterización. Otra cuestión clave es si la emergencia debería ser entendida como una noción epistémica o si hay un concepto ontológico plausible de emergencia. El objetivo de este trabajo es proponer una noción epistémica de emergencia contextual sobre cuya base uno podría abordar estos problemas. (shrink)