Emergence

Towards A New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science

Mariusz Tabaczek

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780268105006
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

Over the last several decades, the theories of emergence and downward causation have become arguably the most popular conceptual tools in scientific and philosophical attempts to explain the nature and character of global organization observed in various biological phenomena, from individual cell organization to ecological systems. The theory of emergence acknowledges the reality of layered strata or levels of systems, which are consequences of the appearance of an interacting range of novel qualities.

A closer analysis of emergentism, however, reveals a number of philosophical problems facing this theory. In Emergence, Mariusz Tabaczek offers a thorough analysis of these problems and a constructive proposal of a new metaphysical foundation for both the classic downward causation-based and the new dynamical depth accounts of emergence theory, developed by Terrence Deacon. Tabaczek suggests ways in which both theoretical models of emergentism can be grounded in the classical and the new (dispositionalist) versions of Aristotelianism. This book will have an eager audience in metaphysicians working both in the analytic and the Thomistic traditions, as well as philosophers of science and biology interested in emergence theory and causation.

PART 1

Metaphysical Aspects of Emergence and Downward Causation

When spontaneous processes like the complex adaptive functions of living bodies tend to produce increasing orderliness, complex interdependencies, and designs that are precisely correlated and matched to one another and the world, we can be excused for being just a little mystified.

—Terrence Deacon, Emergence: The Hole at the Wheel’s Hub

To the extent that emergence denies to the whole any unity beyond the incidental arrangement of its parts, it fails to explain the being of the whole. And without some grounding in the being of the whole, emergence can only affirm but not explain the activity that proceeds from the whole. So long as emergence remains unable to account for the being of the whole, its tendency will be to slip back into a kind of reductionism, attributing to the part a more fundamental reality than to the whole.

—Michael Dodds, Top Down, Bottom Up or Inside Out? Retrieving Aristotelian Causality in Contemporary Science

The more advanced our scientific knowledge becomes, the more we realize the world is a messy place, resisting any naïve drive toward simplification and unification. The actual complexity of nature puts in question the reductionist agenda developed and pursued by many scientists and thinkers over the last three centuries of academic research and study. Today it becomes obvious that reductionism’s ideal of clarity, precision, orderliness, and discipline is simply a myth, unable to account for the actual complexity of nature. But the reductionist paradigm has driven both scientific research and the philosophical reflection based on it long enough to make it difficult for many to acknowledge its shortcomings, while causing an enormous struggle for others who try to provide a suitable replacement for various types of reductionist declarations and dogmas.¹

One of the main battlegrounds in this warfare is the field of biology, as it is concerned, by definition, with complex structures of living organisms. The rapid development of biochemistry and molecular biology in the past century had led many scientists to believe that their reductionist approach would prove to be the only valid method of biological research. Today, a growing interest in the systems approach in biology becomes a sign of a paradigm shift in the methodology of the life sciences. The widespread availability of high computational power, developments in mathematical and algorithmic techniques, and the development of mass data-production technologies (e.g., high-throughput data collecting) allow for collecting dense dynamical information from complex biological systems. The interest in systems becomes a viable alternative to traditional biological fields like molecular biology, which use experimental techniques to research and measure molecular properties, discover interactions, and build causal pathways. Rather than study biomolecules in vitro, systems biology studies in vivo the dynamic behavior and properties of entire biological systems that are formed by these biomolecules.

This new approach in biology shows the growing awareness among scientists that biological functions of particular components depend on their participation in complex systems, and it is only at this scale that we can construe predictively accurate models for theoretical and practical purposes. Moreover, it also helps them understand that qualitative properties of complex biological systems are not simply functions of quantitative aggregation of their physically simpler constituents.²

The holistic attitude of systems biology becomes one of the main inspirations of the recent revival of emergentism in both science and the philosophy of science. In its contemporary ontological (strong) version, the theory of EM acknowledges the reality of layered strata or levels of systems, which are consequences of the appearance of an interacting range of novel qualities. “[These qualities’] novelty is not merely temporal (such as the first instance of a particular geometric configuration), nor the first instance of a particular determinate of a familiar determinable (such as the first instance of mass 157.6819 kg in a contiguous hunk of matter).”³ The qualities in question are novel, nonstructural, and fundamental. Moreover, in its most recent version, ontological EM is closely related to the theory of DC—that is, new, primitive, and top-down-oriented causal power, which is regarded as a decisive and most characteristic trait of emergent systems.

But what for many is the essence of EM and the foundation of the new ontological position called nonreductionist physicalism turns out to be a stumbling block and an obstacle for others, who acknowledge the metaphysical and logical inconsistencies of the EM theory based on the idea of DC. Their criticism inspires, in turn, a current development of a processual and dynamical version of EM. Its protagonists accuse the followers of the classical account of EM of being stuck in, and limited by, the mereological (part-whole) way of thinking. They see their own proposition as more consequent in applying a systems approach in natural science and philosophy of science. They also think that the whole endeavor shows the need for a new metaphysics that will give a better account of dynamical and processual changes in nature. Whether their project is capable of solving all philosophical puzzles and questions concerning EM, DC, and nonreductionist physicalism remains an open question, which is one of the main motives for the inquiry pursued in this part of my project.

I will begin by analyzing the most important metaphysical postulates of EM, including some necessary preliminary references to the historical context of their formulation (chapter 1). My investigation of the central dogma of EM will be then followed by an inquiry concerning its main metaphysical challenges, weaknesses, and flaws, showing the need and opening a way to its redefinition in terms of a more robust theory of causation (chapter 2). Finally, I will provide a thorough metaphysical analysis and a critical evaluation of the project developed by Terrence Deacon, in which he applies categories of causation related to those of Aristotle in his original dynamical depth model of EM (chapter 3).

CHAPTER 1

The Central Dogma of Emergentism

Even if some theorists of EM find it reasonable to look for its origins as early as in Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel,¹ I believe the concept has its roots primarily in the nineteenth-century analysis of the so-called composition of causes, developed by a group of philosophers seen as the protagonists of British emergentism. A thorough historical analysis of EM is not needed here. Since my interest is in its central metaphysical features and commitments, I will limit the historical inquiry to a short summary of the five main phases of the development of EM.²

1. HISTORICAL FACETS

The first phase of the historical development of emergentism was inspired by the dramatic advances in chemistry and biology in the nineteenth century that challenged conceptual bridges constructed earlier between those disciplines and physics. It is usually associated with the philosophy of John Stuart Mill (1806–73) and George Henry Lewes (1817–78), who analyzed the so-called compositions of causes and introduced the concept of emergent effects (Lewes). Mill’s thought was picked up by the Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain (1818–1903), who spoke about new forces of nature caused by certain collocations of agents. After several decades, at the beginning of the twentieth century, emergentism reappeared in the philosophy of biology, in opposition to vitalism and mechanistic reductionism. Its major proponents were Samuel Alexander (1859–1938), Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852–1936), and Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971). The third phase of the debate on the concept of EM brought much criticism and skepticism about its relevance, due to the antimetaphysical agenda of logical positivism and analytical philosophy, in the middle of the twentieth century, in both continental and American contexts. The fourth phase, and the revival of emergentism, coincides with the debate on the mind-brain problem and with contributions to this debate, especially by Mario Bunge (b. 1919), Karl Raimund Popper (1902–94), Roger Wolcott Sperry (1904–94), and John Jamieson Carswell Smart (1920–2012). The fifth, current phase, besides the continuing research in the field of brain studies and philosophy of mind, includes the discovery and description of emergent properties in other branches of molecular and systemic biology. Moreover, research in emergent studies has been recently enriched by a broader analysis of the scientific, metaphysical, and theological aspects and implications of EM, which becomes the catalyst for our present discussion.³

2. CHARACTERISTICS OF EMERGENCE

The plurality of different realms of natural and human sciences referring to EM generates a multiplicity of meanings and classifications of different types of emergent properties, making it difficult to provide a universal definition of the term. Moreover, philosophical analyses and explanations of EM differ remarkably from the scientific ones. The former examine more speculative, ontological, and causal dimensions of the concept of EM, whereas the latter search more for its practical aspects and examples, limiting theoretical discussion to a minimum.⁴ Following the first, more theoretical and speculative path, I will now try to list the most important philosophical characteristics of EM.⁵

2.1. Nonadditivity of Causes

The father of British emergentism, John Stuart Mill, distinguished (a) physical composition of causes and transition laws based on the vector or algebraic addition from (b) the chemical mode of combined action of causes and transition laws, where the product is not an algebraic sum of the effects of each reactant: “[The] difference between the case in which the joint effect of causes is the sum of their separate effects, and the case in which it is heterogeneous to them; between laws which work together without alteration, and laws which, when called upon to work together, cease and give place to others; is one of the fundamental distinctions in nature.”⁶ Mill called the mechanical (physical) type of effect a “homopathic effect” (governed by “homopathic laws”), as opposed to the chemical type of effect, which he named a “heteropathic effect” (governed by “heteropathic laws”). He claimed that heteropathic laws supersede the homopathic laws, providing an explanation for the need of special sciences, as it is impossible to deduce all chemical and physiological truths from the laws or properties of simple substances or elementary agents. Moreover, even if heteropathic causes can combine in accordance with the composition of causes to produce new homopathic effects, chemistry, which describes their instantiations, is still far from being a deductive science. It cannot be reduced to a small group of systematically well-integrated laws from which all other laws proper to it can be derived. But if such is the status and nature of chemistry, Mill concludes, then the laws of life will be all the more nondeducible from the laws of its chemical ingredients.

Lewes follows Mill’s idea concerning nonadditivity of causes, while introducing new terminology distinguishing between “resultant” and “emergent” effects, the latter being incommensurable and irreducible to the sum of their components. He coins the very term “emergence” in saying: “There are two classes of effects markedly distinguishable as resultants and emergents. Thus, although each effect is the resultant of its components, the product of its factors, we cannot always trace the steps of the process, so as to see in the product the mode of operation of each factor. In this latter case, I propose to call the effect an emergent.”⁷ In more recent versions of emergentism we find those who relate nonadditivity of causes to the nonlinear features of complex systems—for example, being in the basin of a strange attractor—and treat it as motivating a nonreductionist version of physicalism.⁸ Moreover, Jessica Wilson suggests that the proposition of Shoemaker, who distinguishes between “micro-manifest” and “micro-latent” powers of lower-level entities, can also be better understood in the context of the same idea of nonadditivity of causes.⁹

Nonetheless, going back to Mill and Lewes and their original formulation of the rule of nonadditivity of causes, we realize that the first definition of EM was given in reference to cause-effect relationships—that is, in the language characteristic of philosophy of causation. Indeed, as we will see, the causal aspect of EM theory proves to be crucial and indispensable for its relevance and plausibility. But before we explore it further, we should consider first some other philosophical features of EM.

2.2. Novelty of Complex Processes, Entities, and Properties

That the first definition of EM is given in causal terms requires from us a further reflection on the nature of reality grounding causal dependencies. Here we encounter a plurality of propositions concerning the metaphysical nature of emergents. Some of them are used interchangeably. Among the first emergentists, Samuel Alexander uses processual language when he talks about the “collocation of motions” possessing “a new quality distinctive of the higher complex” and “expressible without residue in terms of the processes proper to the level from which they emerge.”¹⁰

Those who refer to chemical examples of EM (Mill, Lewes, Morgan), even if they acknowledge the processual character of chemical reactions, describe the emergent character of their outcomes in terms of entities and substances. Lewes, for instance, classifies liquid water or hydrogen as emergent. Broad contrasts pure mechanism, defined as the composition of all matter of the same stuff, with the emergent character of wholes. Both examples refer indirectly to the language of substance.

Probably the most popular among emergentists, however, is the language of emergent qualities and properties. Alexander describes them in terms of powers, dispositions, or capacities. Broad speaks of properties specific for emergent order and calls them “ultimate characteristics,” in contrast with “ordinally neutral characteristics” and “reducible characteristics.” He sees them as dependencies pertaining simultaneously among structures at different scales and distinguishes such synchronic aspects of EM from its diachronic features, which deal with the ways in which phenomena and properties develop over time:

Put in abstract terms the emergent theory asserts that there are certain wholes, composed (say) of constituents A, B, and C in relation R to each other; that all wholes composed of constituents of the same kind as A, B, and C in relations of the...

Table of contents

• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Causation in Philosophy and Scientific Explanation
• PART 1 Metaphysical Aspects of Emergence and Downward Causation
• PART 2 Dispositions/Powers Metaphysics and Emergence
• Conclusion
• APPENDIX 1 Potency and Act
• APPENDIX 2 Process Metaphysics of Emergence
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index