Abstract
In recent years, emergentism has resurfaced as a possible method by which to secure autonomous mental causation from within a physicalistic framework. Critics argue, however, that emergentism fails, since emergentism entails that effects have sufficient physical causes, so they cannot also have distinct mental causes. In this paper I argue that this objection may be effective against supervenient emergentism, but it is not established that it is effective against mereological emergentism. In fact, after demonstrating that two founding emergentists, Samuel Alexander and C. Lloyd Morgan, are mereological emergentists, I show how mereological emergentism provides fresh responses to the causal exclusion problem.
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Notes
These binary relations are, of course, miniature instances of (iv), substantial unities composed of these lower level parts.
And, in virtue of the distance between the particles and the gravitational constant, but these additional qualifications can be bracketed out for my purposes.
It is worth noting that the total microstructural property is characterized as both a property and as a substantial unity. Similarly, emergent properties will, in part, be characterized as mereological configurations. The potential discomfort accompanying this ontological conflagration is alleviated by construing substantial unities as instantiations of structural properties. It is also worth noting that the total microstructural property is elsewhere referred to as a “micro-based property” (Kim 1997, 292; Kim 1999b, 117), and a “specific mereological configuration” (Kim 1998, 118–119). To maximize clarity, I will use the term ‘substantial unity’ throughout. While the term ‘substantial unity’ is largely interchangeable with ‘total microstructural property’, it is worth noting that emergentists include functional properties capturing the functional organization of the substantial unity within substantial unities, while Kim does not appear to do so.
It is also possible to think of novelty as (1) before these parts were first arranged in this way, this novel property had never appeared in the universe before; (2) these emergent properties differ in mereological-level from the lower-level parts and properties constituting it; and (3), these emergent properties have novel causal power. The meaning of novel causal power is worked out below.
That is, assuming that the wheel is an essential property of the bicycle. Each whole will have accidental functional properties as well. The bicycle may or may not have some lower level part functioning as a horn. But, the bicycle necessarily has certain lower level tires functioning as wheels. Without tires functioning as bicycle wheels, the bicycle would no longer be a bicycle.
Alexander conceives of emergents as qualities, which are often equated with properties. Thus, it may be suggested that Alexander conceives of emergents as properties arising from structures of parts rather than emergents as being identical with structures of parts. Such an interpretation would be incorrect, however, for Alexander is clear that an emergent quality is the structure of parts. Consider, for example, the following passage: “But whereas up to the present we have been content to treat the quality as something which is correlated with a certain configuration of its basis, we can now, following the clue of the relation between mind and its body, identify the quality with its peculiar form of body” (Alexander 1920b, 47). Alexander also says, “In the following pages I sometimes use mind for the quality of mentality or consciousness, sometimes for the thing or substance which has this distinctive quality. The substance mind is the complex of mental processes contained within its proper contour of space–time” (Alexander 1920b, 38; cp, Alexander 1920b, 39; Alexander 1920b, 74). See footnote 3.
Morgan, in fact, traces the origin of emergentism back to John Stuart Mill’s distinction between effects which are the sum of their separate effects and effects which are heteropathic to their separate effects (Mill 1843, VI.1–2), and George Henry Lewes distinction between effects which are the resultant of their component factors and emergent effects which are not identical to the resultant summation of the component factors (Lewes 1891, II.V.65–66). Morgan, quite rightly, ascribes the term ‘heteropathic’ to Mill, without ascribing the contrasting term ‘homopathic’ or ‘homeopathic’ to Mill. It is worth noting that, contrary to popular presumption (Kim 1999a, 3; Francescotti 2007, 48), Mill does not use the term ‘homopathic’ or ‘homeopathic’ to describe effects that are the resultant sums of the individual causes. Morgan also highlights several features that both distinctions share in common: “Both distinguish those properties (a) which are additive and subtractive only, and predictable, from those (b) which are new and unpredictable; both insist on the claim that the latter no less than the former fall under the rubric of uniform causation” (Morgan 1923, 3).
It is possible to object that Morgan, on many occasions argues that emergent entities are supervenient entities (Morgan 1923, 7; Morgan 1923, 16). While this is true, Morgan is clear that it is the integral whole, or the relatedness among parts, that supervenes upon the lower-level parts: “But when some new kind of relatedness is supervenient (say at the level of life), the way in which the physical events which are involved run their course is different, in virtue of its presence, different from what it would have been if life had been absent” (Morgan 1923, 16–17; cp. Morgan 1923, 130–131; Morgan 1923, 19–20; Morgan 1923, 35; Morgan 1923, 113). For Morgan, the supervenient entity is a new kind of relatedness, or an “emergent superstructure” (Morgan 1923, 278).
It is possible to object that all of the individual relations, taken as a group, but not as a specific configuration, determines the specific configuration. There are two problems here. First, it is possible for parts to stand in the same binary relations with one another, but stand in a different configuration. For example, a square and a tetrahedron can both be fashioned in such a way as each point is the same distance from each other. These configurations have different causal powers however: a square, however, can fit through a flat slit, while a tetrahedron cannot. Secondly, if we take the many parts individually, but as a group, but not as a specific configuration, then we cannot insist on the spatiotemporal overlap that exists within a specific configuration. For example, a boat travelling north, then west, does not follow the same path as a boat travelling northwest (which is the temporal overlap of a northern force and a western force on the boat); and, a boat travelling north and west, taken individually, but together, travels due north and due west (which is impossible), it does not travel due northwest (which is spatial overlap of a northern force and a western force on the boat) (Cartwright 1980; Moore 2012).
It is possible to object that Morgan intentionally distinguishes emergents from resultants, so it is unlikely that he imagines that emergent efficacy is captured by resultant forces over and against the component forces taken individually. While there may be some truth to this, it is clear that, even from the passage cited in Footnote Four, Morgan conceives of the distinction between resultants and emergents in epistemic terms. With respect to metaphysics, he admits that emergent effectiveness, a posteriori, is analyzable in physicochemical terms.
It is possible to object that this implies that emergent efficacy is as mundane as a background conditions. Background conditions, such as the formation of the earth billions of years ago, are necessary conditions for the effect, but are often not granted causal status (Armstrong 1978, 155). Similarly, if emergent efficacy simply states that certain background conditions must be in place before the cause will occur, then this is hardly a palatable version of emergentism. Emergent efficacy, however, is vaunted in a way that mere background conditions are not. This is because emergent efficacy involves the very functional properties of the substantial unity that define the cause-effect process that transpires. To use the example of Dr. Smith: it is Dr. Smith that fails the student, but this effect is only possible when Dr. Smith realizes the university’s professorial function. Or, it is in virtue of being a professor that the effect occurs. This is not the case with mere background conditions.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Bill Seager, Jessica Wilson and Neil Campbell for helpful discussions and comments. I would also like to thank the audience at the 2012 CPA for insightful questions and comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Moore, D. Supervenient Emergentism and Mereological Emergentism. Axiomathes 25, 457–477 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-015-9266-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-015-9266-y