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  1. Must strong emergence collapse?Umut Baysan & Jessica Wilson - 2017 - Philosophica 91 (1):49--104.
    Some claim that the notion of strong emergence as involving ontological or causal novelty makes no sense, on grounds that any purportedly strongly emergent features or associated powers 'collapse', one way or another, into the lower-level base features upon which they depend. Here we argue that there are several independently motivated and defensible means of preventing the collapse of strongly emergent features or powers into their lower-level bases, as directed against a conception of strongly emergent features as having fundamentally novel (...)
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  • The Mind and its place in nature.C. D. Broad - 1925 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 103:145-146.
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  • Studies in the Logic of Explanation.Carl Hempel & Paul Oppenheim - 1948 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 14 (2):133-133.
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  • Emergence: A Philosophical Account.Paul Humphreys - 2016 - New York, NY, United States of America: Oup Usa.
    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.
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  • An Argument for Power Inheritance.Umut Baysan - 2016 - Philosophical Quarterly (263):pqv126.
    Abstract: Non-reductive physicalism is commonly understood as the view that mental properties are realized by physical properties. Here, I argue that the realization relation in question is a power inheritance relation: if a property P realizes a property Q, then the causal powers of Q are a subset of the causal powers of P. Whereas others have motivated this claim by appealing to its theoretical benefits, I argue that it is in fact entailed by two theses: (i) realization is a (...)
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  • Collapsing Emergence.Elanor Taylor - 2015 - Philosophical Quarterly 65 (261):732-753.
    The thesis that nature is composed of metaphysical levels is commonly understood in terms of emergence. In this paper, I uncover a problem for accounts of emergence, the collapse problem. The collapse problem suggests that emergence merely tracks relations between arbitrary groups of properties and so cannot be used in service of the levels view. I reject several failed attempts to solve the collapse problem and argue for an alternative solution according to which emergence is not a distinction between metaphysical (...)
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  • Metaphysics in Contemporary Physics.Tomasz Bigaj & Christian Wüthrich (eds.) - 2015 - Boston: Brill | Rodopi.
    The book _Metaphysics in Contemporary Physics_ offers various perspectives on the relation and mutual influence between modern physical theories and analytic metaphysics.
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  • The Universe as We Find It.John Heil - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    What does reality encompass? Is it exclusively physical, or does it include mental and 'abstract' aspects? What are the elements of being, reality's raw materials? John Heil offers stimulating answers to these questions framed in terms of a comprehensive metaphysics of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, and their successors.
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  • Emergent Chance.Christian List & Marcus Pivato - 2015 - Philosophical Review 124 (1):119-152.
    We offer a new argument for the claim that there can be non-degenerate objective chance (“true randomness”) in a deterministic world. Using a formal model of the relationship between different levels of description of a system, we show how objective chance at a higher level can coexist with its absence at a lower level. Unlike previous arguments for the level-specificity of chance, our argument shows, in a precise sense, that higher-level chance does not collapse into epistemic probability, despite higher-level properties (...)
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  • Nonlinearity and metaphysical emergence.Jessica M. Wilson - 2013 - In Stephen Mumford & Matthew Tugby (eds.), Metaphysics and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    The nonlinearity of a composite system, whereby certain of its features (including powers and behaviors) cannot be seen as linear or other broadly additive combinations of features of the system's composing entities, has been frequently seen as a mark of metaphysical emergence, coupling the dependence of a composite system on an underlying system of composing entities with the composite system's ontological autonomy from its underlying system. But why think that nonlinearity is a mark of emergence, and moreover, of metaphysical rather (...)
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  • Emergent Physics and Micro-Ontology.Margaret Morrison - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (1):141-166.
    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 (...)
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  • Objects and Persons.Trenton Merricks - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Objects and Persons presents an original theory about what kinds of things exist. Trenton Merricks argues that there are no non-living inanimate macrophysical objects -- no statues or rocks or chairs or stars -- because they would have no causal role over and above the causal role of their microphysical parts. Humans do exist: we have non-redundant causal powers. Along the way, Merricks has interesting things to say about mental causation, free will, and various philosophical puzzles. Anyone working in metaphysics (...)
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  • Metaphysics and Science.Stephen Mumford & Matthew Tugby (eds.) - 2013 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Metaphysics and Science brings together important new work within an emerging philosophical discipline: the metaphysics of science. In the opening chapter, a definition of the metaphysics of science is offered, one which explains why the topics of laws, causation, natural kinds, and emergence are at the discipline's heart. The book is then divided into four sections, which group together papers from leading academics on each of those four topics. Among the questions discussed are: How are laws and measurement methods related? (...)
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  • Metaphysical emergence: Weak and Strong.Jessica Wilson - 2013 - In Stephen Mumford & Matthew Tugby (eds.), Metaphysics and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 251-306.
    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 (...)
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  • Emergentism and supervenience physicalism.Robert J. Howell - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (1):83 – 98.
    A purely metaphysical formulation of physicalism is surprisingly elusive. One popular slogan is, 'There is nothing over and above the physical'. Problems with this arise on two fronts. First, it is difficult to explain what makes a property 'physical' without appealing to the methodology of physics or to particular ways in which properties are known. This obviously introduces epistemic features into the core of a metaphysical issue. Second, it is difficult to cash out 'over-and-aboveness' in a way that is rigorous, (...)
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  • Non-reductive physicalism and degrees of freedom.Jessica Wilson - 2010 - British Journal for Philosophy of Science 61 (2):279-311.
    Some claim that Non- reductive Physicalism is an unstable position, on grounds that NRP either collapses into reductive physicalism, or expands into emergentism of a robust or ‘strong’ variety. I argue that this claim is unfounded, by attention to the notion of a degree of freedom—roughly, an independent parameter needed to characterize an entity as being in a state functionally relevant to its law-governed properties and behavior. I start by distinguishing three relations that may hold between the degrees of freedom (...)
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  • Studies in the logic of explanation.Carl Gustav Hempel & Paul Oppenheim - 1948 - Philosophy of Science 15 (2):135-175.
    To explain the phenomena in the world of our experience, to answer the question “why?” rather than only the question “what?”, is one of the foremost objectives of all rational inquiry; and especially, scientific research in its various branches strives to go beyond a mere description of its subject matter by providing an explanation of the phenomena it investigates. While there is rather general agreement about this chief objective of science, there exists considerable difference of opinion as to the function (...)
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  • Dualist emergentism.Martine Nida-Rümelin - 2007 - In Brian P. McLaughlin & Jonathan Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind. Wiley-Blackwell.
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  • Emergent individuals.Timothy O'Connor & Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (213):540-555.
    We explain the thesis that human mental states are ontologically emergent aspects of a fundamentally biological organism. We then explore the consequences of this thesis for the identity of a human person over time. As these consequences are not obviously independent of one's general ontology of objects and their properties, we consider four such accounts: transcendent universals, kind-Aristotelianism, immanent universals, and tropes. We suggest there are reasons for emergentists to favor the latter two accounts. We then argue that within such (...)
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  • Emergent properties.Timothy O'Connor - 1994 - American Philosophical Quarterly 31 (2):91-104.
    All organised bodies are composed of parts, similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner, bear no analogy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substances considered as mere physical agents. To whatever degree we might imagine our knowledge of the properties of the several ingredients of a (...)
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  • Strong and weak emergence.David J. Chalmers - 2006 - In Philip Clayton & Paul Davies (eds.), The re-emergence of emergence: the emergentist hypothesis from science to religion. New York: Oxford University Press.
    The term ‘emergence’ often causes confusion in science and philosophy, as it is used to express at least two quite different concepts. We can label these concepts _strong_ _emergence_ and _weak emergence_. Both of these concepts are important, but it is vital to keep them separate.
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  • The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism.Brian P. Mclaughlin - 1992 - In Ansgar Beckermann, Hans Flohr & Jaegwon Kim (eds.), Emergence or Reduction?: Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism. New York: W. de Gruyter. pp. 49-93.
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  • Emergence: A Philosophical Account.Paul Humphreys - 2016 - New York, NY, United States of America: Oup Usa.
    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.
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  • Explanatory Emergence as a Guide to Metaphysical Structure.Elanor Taylor - 2017 - Philosophica 91 (1).
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  • Causal Emergence and Epiphenomenal Emergence.Umut Baysan - 2020 - Erkenntnis 85 (4):891-904.
    According to one conception of strong emergence, strongly emergent properties are nomologically necessitated by their base properties and have novel causal powers relative to them. In this paper, I raise a difficulty for this conception of strong emergence, arguing that these two features are incompatible. Instead of presenting this as an objection to the friends of strong emergence, I argue that this indicates that there are distinct varieties of strong emergence: causal emergence and epiphenomenal emergence. I then explore the prospects (...)
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  • Only Explanation Can Reinflate Emergence.Elanor Taylor - 2017 - Philosophical Quarterly (271):385-394.
    In a recent exchange in this journal, I argue that accounts of emergence face the collapse problem, and I defend an explanatory approach to emergence as a solution to this problem. Alexander Skiles objects to my account, and proposes an alternative solution to the collapse problem. In this discussion note I take up this conversation, defending the explanatory account of emergence against Skiles’ critique, and arguing that his alternative approach fails to solve the collapse problem.
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  • Emergence reinflated.Alexander Skiles - 2016 - Philosophical Quarterly 66 (265):833-842.
    In ‘Collapsing Emergence’, Elanor Taylor argues that all accounts of emergence face a common problem: excluding ‘collapse-inducing’ features—features encoding information about macro-level phenomena—from the micro-level bases of putatively emergent phenomena in a metaphysically principled way. I argue that Taylor's solution to ‘the collapse problem’, which utilizes an explanation-based account of emergence she develops in recent work, does not succeed, as it relies on a false principle about the requirements for explanation. I then propose a better solution, one that presupposes no (...)
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  • The Mind and its Place in Nature.Charlie Dunbar Broad - 1925 - London, England: Routledge.
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  • Reduction and Emergence in Science and Philosophy.Carl Gillett - 2016 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
    Grand debates over reduction and emergence are playing out across the sciences, but these debates have reached a stalemate, with both sides declaring victory on empirical grounds. In this book, Carl Gillett provides new theoretical frameworks with which to understand these debates, illuminating both the novel positions of scientific reductionists and emergentists and the recent empirical advances that drive these new views. Gillett also highlights the flaws in existing philosophical frameworks and reorients the discussion to reflect the new scientific advances (...)
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  • Non-reductive Physicalism and Degrees of Freedom.Jessica Wilson - 2010 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (2):279-311.
    Some claim that Non-reductive Physicalism is an unstable position, on grounds that NRP either collapses into reductive physicalism, or expands into emergentism of a robust or ‘strong’ variety. I argue that this claim is unfounded, by attention to the notion of a degree of freedom—roughly, an independent parameter needed to characterize an entity as being in a state functionally relevant to its law-governed properties and behavior. I start by distinguishing three relations that may hold between the degrees of freedom needed (...)
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  • Physical Realization.Sydney Shoemaker - 2007 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    In Physical Realization, Sydney Shoemaker considers the question of how physicalism can be true: how can all facts about the world, including mental ones, be constituted by facts about the distribution in the world of physical properties? Physicalism requires that the mental properties of a person are 'realized in' the physical properties of that person, and that all instantiations of properties in macroscopic objects are realized in microphysical states of affairs. Shoemaker offers an account of both these sorts of realization, (...)
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  • Emergent Properties.Timothy O' Connor - 1994 - American Philosophical Quarterly 31:91.
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  • An explication of emergence.Elanor Taylor - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (3):653-669.
    Philosophical debates about emergence are often marred by equivocation and lack of common ground, and dialogue about emergence between scientists and philosophers can be equally difficult. In this paper I offer a unified explication of emergence and argue that this explication can cut through much of the confusion evident in discussions of emergence. I defend an explication of the concept of emergence as the unavailability of a certain kind of scientific explanation for an observer or observers.
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