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)

The book examines issues related to the way modeling and simulation enable us to reconstruct aspects of the world we are investigating. It also investigates the processes by which we extract concrete knowledge from those reconstructions and how that knowledge is legitimated.