A variety of recent philosophical discussions, particularly on topics relating to complexity, have begun to reemploy the concept of 'emergence'. Although multiple concepts of 'emergence' are available, little effort has been made to systematically distinguish them. In this paper, I provide a taxonomy of higher-order properties that (inter alia) distinguishes three classes of emergent properties: (1) ontologically basic properties of complex entities, such as the mythical vital properties, (2) fully configurational properties, such as mental properties as they are conceived of (...) by functionalists and computationalists, and (3) highly configurational/holistic properties, such as the higher-level patterns characteristic of complex dynamical systems. Or more simply: emergence as ontological liberality, emergence as multiple realizability, and emergence as interactive complexity. (shrink)

Gossip has been the object of a number of different studies in the past 50 years, rehabilitating it not only as something worth being studied, but also as a pivotal informational and social structure of human cognition: Dunbar (Rev Gen Psychol 8(2):100–110, 2004) interestingly linked the emergence of language to nothing less than its ability to afford gossip. Different facets of gossip were analyzed by anthropologists, linguists, psychologists and philosophers, but few attempts were made to frame gossip within an epistemological (...) framework (for instance Ayim in (Good gossip, pp. 85–99, 1994)). Our intention in this paper is to provide a consistent epistemological (applied and social) account of gossip, understood as broadly evaluative talk between two or more people, comfortably acquainted between each other, about an absent third party they are both at least acquainted with. Hence, relying on the most recent multidisciplinary literature about the topic, the first part of this paper will concern the epistemic dynamics of gossip: whereas the sociobiological tradition individuates in gossip the clue for the (theoretically cumbersome) group mind and group-level adaptations Wilson et al. (The evolution of cognition, pp. 347–365, 2002), we will suggest the more parsimonious modeling of gossip as a soft-assembled epistemic synergy, understood as a function-dominant interaction able to project a higher organizational level—in our case, the group as group-of-gossips. We will argue that the aim of this synergy is indeed to update a Knowledge Base of social information between the group (as a projected whole) and its members. The second and third part will instead focus on the epistemological labeling of the inferences characterizing gossip: our contention is that the ever-present moral/evaluative dimension in gossip—be it tacit or explicit, concerning the objects or the partners of gossip—is best analyzed through the epistemological framework of abduction. Consequently, we will suggest that a significant role of gossip is to function as a group-based abductive appraisal of social matter, enacted at various levels. (shrink)

In modern, Western societies the purpose of schooling is to ensure that school-goers acquire knowledge of pre-existing practices, events, entities and so on. The knowledge that is learned is then tested to see if the learner has acquired a correct or adequate understanding of it. For this reason, it can be argued that schooling is organised around a representational epistemology: one which holds that knowledge is an accurate representation of something that is separate from knowledge itself. Since the object of (...) knowledge is assumed to exist separately from the knowledge itself, this epistemology can also be considered ‘spatial.’ In this paper we show how ideas from complexity have challenged the spatial epistemology’ of representation and we explore possibilities for an alternative ‘temporal’ understanding of knowledge in its relationship to reality. In addition to complexity, our alternative takes its inspiration from Deweyan ‘transactional realism’ and deconstruction. We suggest that ‘knowledge’ and ‘reality’ should not be understood as separate systems which somehow have to be brought into alignment with each other, but that they are part of the same emerging complex system which is never fully ‘present’ in any (discrete) moment in time. This not only introduces the notion of time into our understanding of the relationship between knowledge and reality, but also points to the importance of acknowledging the role of the ‘unrepresentable’ or ‘incalculable’. With this understanding knowledge reaches us not as something we receive but as a response, which brings forth new worlds because it necessarily adds something (which was not present anywhere before it appeared) to what came before. This understanding of knowledge suggests that the acquisition of curricular content should not be considered an end in itself. Rather, curricular content should be used to bring forth that which is incalculable from the perspective of the present. The epistemology of emergence therefore calls for a switch in focus for curricular thinking, away from questions about presentation and representation and towards questions about engagement and response. (shrink)

Throughout most of the 20th century, analytical and reductionist approaches have dominated in biological, social, and humanistic sciences, including linguistics and communication. We generally believed we could account for fundamental phenomena in invoking basic elemental units. Although the amount of knowledge generated was certainly impressive, we have also seen limitations of this approach. Discovering the sound formants of human languages, for example, has allowed us to know vital aspects of the ‘material’ plane of verbal codes, but it tells us little (...) about significant aspects of their social functions. I firmly believe, therefore, that alongside a linguistics that looks ‘inward’ there should also be a linguistics that looks ‘outward’, or one even that is constructed ‘from the outside’, a linguistics that I refer to elsewhere as ‘holistic’ though it could be identified by a different name. My current vision is to promote simultaneously the perspective that goes from the part to the whole and that which goes from the whole to the parts, i.e., both from the top down and from the bottom up. This goal is shared with other disciplines which recognize that many phenomena related to life are interwoven, self-organising, emergent and processual. Thus, we need to re-examine how we have conceived of reality, both the way we have looked at it and the images we have used to talk about it. Several approaches now grouped under the label of complexity have been elaborated towards this objective of finding new concepts and ways of thinking that better fit the complex organisation of facts and events. (shrink)

Living organisms are currently most often seen as complex dynamical systems that develop and evolve in relation to complex environments. Reflections on the meaning of the complex dynamical nature of living systems show an overwhelming multiplicity in approaches, descriptions, definitions and methodologies. Instead of sustaining an epistemic pluralism, which often functions as a philosophical armistice in which tolerance and so-called neutrality discharge proponents of the burden to clarify the sources and conditions of agreement and disagreement, this paper aims at analysing: (...) (i) what has been Kant's original conceptualisation of living organisms as natural purposes; (ii) how the current perspectives are to be related to Kant's viewpoint; (iii) what are the main trends in current complexity thinking. One of the basic ideas is that the attention for structure and its epistemological consequences witness to a great extent of Kant's viewpoint, and that the idea of organisational stratification today constitutes a different breeding ground within which complexity issues are raised. The various approaches of complexity in biological systems are captured in terms of two different styles, universalism and (weak and strong) constructivism, between which hybrid forms exist. (shrink)

How can we make complexity work as part of a programme of engaged social science? This article attempts to answer that question by arguing that one way to do this is through a reconstruction of a central tool of a distinctively social science – the comparative method – understood as a procedure for elucidating the complex and multiple systems of causation that generate particular trajectories towards a desired future from the multiple sets of available futures. The article distinguishes between ‘simplistic (...) complexity’ and ‘complex complexity’. ‘Simplistic complexity’ seeks to explain emergence in complex systems as the product of simple rules and defines complex science as the process of establishing such rules. It can and does serve as the basis of technocratic social engineering in the interest of the powerful. In contrast ‘complex complexity’ recognizes the significance of social structure and willed social agency and does not reduce emergence to the mere working out of a restricted set of rules. Research programmes informed by this second approach must necessarily engage with social actors in context – they must be dialogical. This opens up the possibility of ‘complex complexity’ as a frame of reference for action-research directed towards the transformation of complex social systems. Comparative methods, and in particular Ragin’s qualitative comparative analysis approach, when deployed as part of such a programme, can provide meaningful information about the range of possible futures and the different configurations of causes which might generate particular desired social outcomes. (shrink)

Computational modeling plays an increasingly important explanatory role in cases where we investigate systems or problems that exceed our native epistemic capacities. One clear case where technological enhancement is indispensable involves the study of complex systems.1 However, even in contexts where the number of parameters and interactions that define a problem is small, simple systems sometimes exhibit non-linear features which computational models can illustrate and track. In recent decades, computational models have been proposed as a way to assist us in (...) understanding emergent phenomena. (shrink)

I investigate the relationship between adaptation, as defined in evolutionary theory through natural selection, and the concept of emergence. I argue that there is an essential correlation between the former, and “emergence” defined in the field of algorithmic simulations. I first show that the computational concept of emergence (in terms of incompressible simulation) can be correlated with a causal criterion of emergence (in terms of the specificity of the explanation of global patterns). On this ground, I argue that emergence in (...) general involves some sort of selective processes. Finally, I show that a second criterion, concerning novel explanatory regularities following the emergence of a pattern, captures the robustness of emergence displayed by some cases of emergence (according to the first criterion). Emergent processes fulfilling both criteria are therefore exemplified in evolutionary biology by some so-called “innovations”, and mostly by the new units of fitness or new kinds of adaptations (like sexual reproduction, multicellular organisms, cells, societies) sometimes called “major transitions in evolution”, that recent research programs (Maynard-Smith and Szathmary 1995 ; Michod 1999 ) aims at explaining. (shrink)

The present work is focussed on the completeness of physics, or what is here called the Completeness Thesis: the claim that the domain of the physical is causally closed. Two major questions are tackled: How best is the Completeness Thesis to be formulated? What can be said in defence of the Completeness Thesis? My principal conclusions are that the Completeness Thesis can be coherently formulated, and that the evidence in favour if it significantly outweighs that against it. In opposition to (...) those who argue that formulation is impossible because no account of what is to count as physical can be provided, I argue that as long as the purpose of the argument in which the account is to be used are borne in mind there are no significant difficulties. The account of the physical which I develop holds as physical whatever is needed to fix the likelihood of pre-theoretically given physical effects, and hypothesises in addition that no chemical, biological or psychological factors will be needed in this way. The thus formulated Completeness Thesis is coherent, and has significant empirical content. In opposition to those who defend the doctrine of emergentism by means of philosophical arguments I contend that those arguments are flawed, setting up misleading dichotomies between needlessly attenuated alternatives and assuming the truth of what is to be proved. Against those who defend emergentism by appeal to the evidence, I argue that the history of science since the nineteenth century shows clearly that the empirical credentials of the view that the world is causally closed at the level of a small number of purely physical forces and types of energy is stronger than ever, and the credentials of emergentism correspondingly weaker. In opposition to those who argue that difficulties with reductionism point to the implausibility of the Completeness Thesis I argue that completeness in no way entails the kinds of reductionism which give rise to the difficulties in question. I argue further that the truth of the Completeness Thesis is in fact compatible with a great deal of taxonomic disorder and the impossibility of any general reduction of non-fundamental descriptions to fundamental ones. In opposition to those who argue that the epistemological credentials of fundamental physical laws are poor, and that those laws should in fact be seen as false, I contend that truth preserving accounts of fundamental laws can be developed. Developing such an account, I test it by considering cases of the composition of forces and causes, where what takes place is different to what is predicted by reference to any single law, and argue that viewing laws as tendencies allows their truth to be preserved, and sense to be made of both the experimental discovery of laws, and the fact that composition enables accurate prediction in at least some cases. (shrink)

A further critique of Fine and Saad-Filho's reading of Marxist political economy: it neglects the monetary dimension of Marx's analysis; it focuses too much on production, and on the organic composition of capital, treated in isolation from the overall circuit of capital. An alternative theorisation is proposed, stressing what will now be called emergence patterns in Marx's value theory, and giving due weight to circulation, realisation, competition and capital allocation.

In my opinion, it is only in the framework of a research dealing with abductive cognition that we can analyze important cognitive aspects of human and machine capacities. From the point of view of human capacities the phenomenological concept of anticipation, which is related to the problem of the spontaneous generation of spatiality and its three-dimensionality, will be central. I will describe that anticipations can be seen as types of visual and manipulative abduction and also fruitful to illustrate, in the (...) case of human and machine capacities, the respective role of two kinds of strategic reasoning: locked and unlocked abductive strategies, which characterize the basic cognitive pro- cedure of “reading ahead”. The specificity of these contrasting inferential strategies is also related to their potentiality in producing different kinds of hypothetical outcomes, which in turn represent dissimilar levels of knowledge creativity. This diversity is also fundamental to depict the special character, the kind of creativity, and the limits of current computational deep learning AI systems, such as AlphaGo, which realize abductive cognitive processes. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary analogies and metaphors are potential useful tools for thinking and creativity. The exploration of other conceptual philosophies and fields can be rewarding and can contribute to produce new useful ideas to be applied on different problems and parts of reality. The development of the so-called 'sustainability' approach allows us to explore the possibility of translate and adapt some of its main ideas to the organisation of human language diversity. The concept of 'sustainability' clearly comes from the tradition of thinking (...) that criticises the perspective of economic development that overlooks almost totally the natural environment -the precise context where this development takes place -and which thus leads it to a final end devoid of resources and clearly harmful for the life of human beings. Against this economicist view, which is blind to its very important side effects, some academic and activist enclaves have proposed the perspective of 'sustainable development' or 'lasting development'. In other words, they have theorised, constructed, and begun to practice an economic and urbanistic development respectful of, integrated into, and in keeping with the dynamics of nature. Such perspective provides a way of improving the material aspects of human life while at the same time not damaging other environmental aspects still more necessary and fundamental for the quality —and even for the simple possibility- of human existence. In fact, the view is a synthesis of possible opposed patterns. It does not renounce material and economic improvement, but nor does it exclude a fully healthy environment that is appropriate for the continuation of the species. If we now try to transfer and to apply this way of thinking to the linguodiversity reality, are there useful analogies and metaphors to be made? We believe there are, and ones that can be used to good advantage, and linked, moreover, to the traditions of thought that have always been present but perhaps even more so these last years with the drive to develop the thinking we are calling ‘eco-linguistic’. From the outset, we would underscore the will to connect apparent ‘opposites’ in an integrative conceptualisation, such as the very syntagm ‘sustainable development’. On the sociolinguistic plane, our debate should probably be about our ‘opposites’, which could be on the one hand the expansion of the dominant languages and, on the other hand, the maintenance and development of human linguistic diversity. (shrink)

Publication du Groupe de Recherche en Épistémologie Comparée Directeur: Robert Nadeau Département de philosophie, Université du Québec à Montréal..

There are several ontological and consequently also methodological mistakes in contemporary mainstream economics. Among them, the so-called ergodic axiom is play significant role. It is understandable that the real economy elaborated as formalized mental model looks like dynamic system on first sight. However, that is right only of dynamical systems in mathematical formalism. Economy that is in our understanding societal and/or collective economy is complex evolving organism. If we imagine such organism in the form of dynamical system that is as (...) clear mathematical formalism, we are losing their crucial authentic character. The significant irredeemable attribute of societal economy is lying in his complex evolving network process character created by large population of people with different decision-making and complex realizing among them. Going from these imaginations the two entities in a question that is dynamical system with their ergodicity and societal economic organism as complex evolving network are qualitative very different ones. That is the reason why we cannot accede with endeavours to draw on living economy straitjacket of ergodic axiom. To articulate that cause by other words ergodic dynamical systems are applicable for physical and partly for chemical entities and only scarcely are fit for living organisms. On the other hand however, as clear method the ergodic dynamical system have good applying for didactical approaches in economics where helping in better understanding some types of complexities in dynamics. The purpose of that essay is to discuss problems around usability of ergodic dynamical system theory and methods in economics in the age of advanced ICT knowledge based society. (shrink)

This book aims to contribute to the overall, integrated understanding of the processes of language contact and their evolution, be they the result of political or economic (dis)integrations or migrations or for technological reasons. Via an interdisciplinary, holistic approach, it also aims to aid the theoretical grounding of a unified, common sociolinguistic paradigm, based on an ecological and complexical perspective. This perspective is based on the fact that linguistic structures do not live in isolation from their social functions and must (...) be situated in relation to the sub- and supra-systems that determine their existence if we are to understand their fortunes. It is a contribution in understanding and promoting the processes of linguistic revitalization in the world, combining at the same time the maintenance and development of diversity while ensuring the intercommunication of human species. (shrink)

Les questions relatives à l’opposition réalisme/antiréalisme sont abordées à la lumière d’une philosophie pragmatiste de l’esprit. On élabore une philosophie pragmatiste de l’esprit dans les termes d’une théorie ‘externaliste-active’ de l’expérience vue comme double processus. Cette théorie pose en principe deux types d’expérience tels que la ‘mentalité’ (en tant que capacité à penser, émettre des hypothèses, formuler des théories, raisonner, délibérer) constitue l’un des deux types d’expérience. La correspondance formelle de la théorie avec les faits est caractérisée en termes de (...) correspondance fonctionnelle entre ces deux types d’expérience. On discute alors les aspects réalistes et constructivistes de cette conception. L’externalisme-actif garantit une sorte de réalisme écologique, qui permet à la théorie d’éviter le constructivisme radical ou l’irréalisme. (shrink)

Some practical criteria for free-will are suggested where free-will is a matter of degree. It is argued that these are more appropriate than some extremely idealised conceptions. Thus although the paper takes lessons from philosophy it avoids idealistic approaches as irrelevant. A mechanism for allowing an agent to meet these criteria is suggested: that of facilitating the gradual emergence of free-will in the brain via an internal evolutionary process. This meets the requirement that not only must the choice of action (...) be free but also choice in the method of choice, and choice in the method of choice of the method of choice etc. This is directly analogous to the emergence of life from non-life. Such an emergence of indeterminism with respect to the conditions of the agent fits well with the `Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis' which posits that our intelligence evolved (at least partially) to enable us to deal with social complexity and modelling `arms races'. There is a clear evolutionary advantage in being internally coherent in seeking to fulfil ones goals and unpredictable by ones peers. To fully achieve this vision several other aspects of cognition are necessary: open-ended strategy development; the meta-evolution of the evolutionary process; the facility to anticipate the results of strategies; and the situating of this process in a society of competitive peers. Finally the requirement that reports of the deliberations that lead to actions need to be socially acceptable leads to the suggestion that the language that the strategies are developed within be subject to a normative process in parallel with the development of free-will. An appendix outlines a philosophical position in support of my position. (shrink)

In this article I explore the relation between vulnerability to rapid landscape change, on the one hand, and conceptions of land and responsibility for landscape, on the other. I begin by briefly discussing the notion of vulnerability to natural phenomena, and possible ways of addressing it. Next, I introduce some of the ways in which natural phenomena and processes have been perceived, and take note of the sense of responsibility toward landscape often expressed among peoples who are deeply rooted in (...) the land. I continue with a discussion of the basis of the respect that underlies this sense of responsibility and with an account of what respect amounts to in this context. After this I point out how respect for natural phenomena may lead to a lowering of vulnerability. I conclude that it is imperative to develop those ways of conceiving of natural phenomena that will lead to a deep sense of respect and responsibility for the natural world that surrounds us. (shrink)

The notion of emergence is longstanding. To date, in the context of the paradigm of complexity, has become important to be co-opted by various schools. This is not a univocal term. However, independent of the perspective always relates to a system and the micro / macro relationship. Historically the emergence has been some kind of a black box of inputs and outputs. The mechanism has been inscrutable. To date there has been a qualitative change in that regard. Indeed, currently available (...) theoretical and methodological devices that allow revealing the black box, namely phenomenal, move from description to explanation of the mechanism of the emergent process. En el contexto del paradigma de la complejidad se trata la noción de emergencia. A la fecha, ha adquirido relevancia siendo cooptada por diversas escuelas. No se trata de un término unívoco. Sin embargo, independiente de la perspectiva siempre refiere a un sistema y a la relación micro/macro. Históricamente la emergencia ha sido una caja negra de inputs y outputs. El mecanismo ha sido inescrutable. A la fecha se ha producido un cambio cualitativo a este respecto. En efecto, actualmente se dispone de dispositivos teóricos y metodológicos que permiten develar la caja negra, a saber, pasar de la descripción fenoménica a la explicación del mecanismo del proceso emergente. Este texto articula la conceptualización de emergencia con su investigación empírica vía simulación computacional. (shrink)

The structuration theory originally provided by Anthony Giddens and the advance improvement of the theory has been trying to solve the dilemma came up in the epistemological aspects of the social sciences and humanity. Social scientists apparently have to choose whether they are too sociological or too psychological. Nonetheless, in the works of the classical sociologist, Emile Durkheim, this thing has been stated long time ago. The usage of some models to construct the bottom-up theories has followed the vast of (...) computational technology. This model is well known as the agent based modeling. This paper is giving a philosophical perspective of the agent-based social sciences, as the sociology to cope the emergent factors coming up in the sociological analysis. The framework is made by using the artificial neural network model to show how the emergent phenomena came from the complex system. Understanding the society has self-organizing (autopoietic) properties, the Kohonen’s self-organizing map is used in the paper. By the simulation examples, it can be seen obviously that the emergent phenomena in social system are seen by the sociologist apart from the qualitative framework on the atomistic sociology. In the end of the paper, it is clear that the emergence sociology is needed for sharpening the sociological analysis in the emergence sociology. (shrink)

The term emergence, or irreducibility, has been used in a great variety of senses over the years, and different senses are useful in different discursive contexts. In this paper the focus is on one specific context, that of methodologically oriented social theory, and the question to answer is, what might be the most useful sense of emergent irreducibility in that field? To answer that question, key intuitions of emergence are first abstracted from the concept’s history. Three main senses of the (...) term are distinguished based on those different intuitions. Then the likely linguistic functions of emergence in each of those main senses are gauged in social theory and methodology. It is argued that one of the senses – here called “contingently epistemological irreducibility” – is in fact more useful as regards social scientific methodology than the others. (shrink)

This paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence. It was presented at the Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference.

Principles of design composition are commonly understood to pertain to geometrical systems for arranging parts in assembling a formal whole. Connection to socio-cultural 'meaning' and relevance arguably occurs primarily via the assumed divinity or universality of these systems. In the contemporary architectural world, where explicitly held beliefs in fundamental, geometrically defined principles or values have dissipated, guiding principles of composition appear to be obsolete. This seems particularly true in relation to work that highlights process - or change, responsiveness, interactivity and (...) adaptability - since this implies that the composition remains in flux and unable to be grounded in the composition of form. While processually inflected architecture (referred to here as 'processual architecture'), has been an active field since at least the 1960s, it has been significa ntly developed since design experiments involving digital computation intensified in the 1990s. For this field of work, both highly celebrated and criticised as superficial or unethical, any connection to 'meaning' or value that might be offered by principles of composition would appear especially lost. This thesis reviews, counterpoises and reorients these assumptions, arguing a case for the value of processual architectural that has not been previously articulated. After the last 10 to 15 years of digital experimentation, it is clear that digital technology in itself is not the primary issue, but simply part of a complex equation. The thesis articulates this 'equation' through the model of emergence, which has been used in the field with increasing prominence in recent years. Through both practice-based research and theoretical development, a processually inflected theory of composition is proposed. This offers pathways through which the potential of processual architecture might be productively developed, aiming to open this field of work into a deeper engagement with pressing contemporary socio-political issues. The thesis demonstrates how the cultivation of particular modes of attention and engagement, found to hold an implicit but nevertheless amplified significance within processual architecture, make it possible to develop an embodied awareness pertaining to an 'ethico-aesthetic know-how'. This know-how is acquired and matured through attention to the affective dimensions that arise through design activity. The thesis highlight aspects of design process and products that are routinely suppressed in architectural discourse, generating new insights into the importance of affect for design process, design products and the relations between them. The ethical dimensions of such an approach become especially poignant through the explicit connection made between design activity and the practices of everyday life. Relationships between architecture and the social become re-energised, in a radically alternative manner to the social agendas of modernism or the more literary critiques of post-modernism. Through detailed discussions of the specific, local conditions with a series of design projects I have undertaken, I argue how and why close attention to the affective dimensions of design process offers new and productive ways to approach research through design practice. This offers a response to the calls for new 'post-critical' forms of research through empowering both sides of a previously held divide: theory and practice. (shrink)