Biblio

This chapter explores the relationship between the concept of emergence, the goal of theoretical completeness, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Samuel Alexander and C. D. Broad argued for limits to the power of scientific explanation. Chemical explanation played a central role in their thinking. After Schrödinger’s work in the 1920s their examples seem to fall flat. However, there are more general lessons from the emergentists that need to be explored. There are cases where we know that explanation of some phenomenon is impossible. What are the implications of known limits to the explanatory power of science, and the apparent ineliminability of brute facts for emergence? One lesson drawn here is that we must embrace a methodological rather than a metaphysical conception of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Fundamentality is the central conceptual component of discussions concerning the emergence. Most obviously, contemporary uses of the term "emergence" vary according to their users' views of fundamentality. This chapter provides a general characterization of fundamentality, explaining the challenges faced by the anti‐emergentist versions of fundamentalism. It discusses the limitations of one prominent account of ontological fundamentality, physicalism. Although physicalism does not present a viable alternative to emergentism, this does not mean that emergentists can declare victory. Completeness is essential to arguments against the possibility of strongly emergent properties. Three interlocking concepts: causation, completeness, and reality, are not straightforwardly scientific in nature, but are, instead, metaphysical, or at least conceptual. Scientific models are intended to provide guidance with respect to explanations and predictions of emergent properties or to offer possible interventions that would allow control over those properties.