Emergence and Convergence: Qualitative Novelty and the Unity of Knowledge

Contents

PREFACE

Introduction

Part I: Emergence

1 Part and Whole, Resultant and Emergent
1 Association and Combination
2 Emergence and Supervenience
3 Levels and Evolution
4 Structure and Mechanism
5 Emergence and Explanation
Concluding Remarks
2 System Emergence and Submergence
1 System Emergence
2 Emergence ex nihilo?
3 Submergence: System Dismantling
4 System Types
5 The CESM Model
Concluding Remarks
3 The Systemic Approach
1 The Systemic Approach
2 Conceptual and Material Systems
3 The Systemic Approach to Physical and Chemical Processes
4 The Systemic Approach to Life
5 The Systemic Approach to Brain and Mind
Concluding Remarks
4 Semiotic and Communication Systems
1 Words, Ideas, and Things
2 Semiotic System
3 Languages as Semiotic Systems
4 Speech and Language
5 Speech Learning and Teaching
6 Communication System
Concluding Remarks
5 Society and Artefact
1 The Systemic Approach to Society
2 Microsocial and Macrosocial, Sectoral and Integral
3 Emergence by Design
4 Social Invention
5 Philosophical Dividends of the Systemic Approach
Concluding Remarks
6 Individualism and Holism: Theoretical
1 Individual and Individualism, Whole and Holism
2 Ontological
3 Logical
4 Semantic
5 Epistemological
6 Methodological
Concluding Remarks
7 Individualism and Holism: Practical
1 Value Theory, Action Theory, and Ethics
2 Historical and Political Individualism
3 First Alternative to Individualism: Holism
4 Hybrids
5 The Systemic Alternative
Concluding Remarks
8 Three Views of Society
1 The Two Classical Views of Society
2 The Systemic Approach
3 From Statistics to Theoretical Models
4 The Science-Technology-Market Supersystem
5 Implications for Social-policy Design
6 Social Studies Are about Social Systems
7 The Competitive Advantage of Systemism
Concluding Remarks
Part II: Convergence
9 Reduction and Reductionism
1 Reduction Operations
2 Micro-levels, Macro-levels, and Their Relations
3 Same-level and Inter-level Relations
4 Inter-level Hypotheses and Explanations
5 From Physics to Chemistry
6 Biology, Ecology, and Psychology
7 From Biology to Social Science: Human Sociobiology and the IQ Debate
8 Kinds and Limits of Reduction
9 Reduction and Materialism
10 Concluding Remarks
10 A Pack of Failed Reductionist Projects
1 Physicalism
2 Computationism
3 Linguistic Imperialism
4 Biologism I: Sociobiology
5 Biologism II: Evolutionary Psychology
6 Psychologism
7 Sociologism, Economism, Politicism, and Culturalism
Concluding Remarks
11 Why Integration Succeeds in Social Studies
1 The B-E-P-C Square
2 Social Multidisciplinarity
3 Social Interdisciplinarity
Concluding Remarks
12 Functional Convergence: The Case of Mental Functions
1 Informationist Psychology
2 Mark II Model: Connectionism
3 Localization of Mental Functions
4 Functional Interdependence of Neural Modules
5 Consciousness: From Mystery to Scientific Problem
6 Two Convergence Processes
Concluding Remarks
13 Stealthy Convergence: Rational-choice Theory and Hermeneutics
1 Divergence and Convergence
2 Methodological Individualism
3 Subjective Process and Observable Behaviour
4 Inverse Problems
5 Figuring Out Mediating Mechanisms
6 Example: The Delinquency–Unemployment Relation
Concluding Remarks
14 Convergence as Confusion: The Case of ‘Maybe’
1 Logical Possibility
2 Factual Possibility
3 Likelihood
4 Relation between Frequency and Probability
5 Probability, Chance, and Causation
6 Credibility
7 Probabilistic Epistemology
8 Plausibility or Verisimilitude
9 Towards a Plausibility Calculus
Concluding Remarks
15 Emergence of Truth and Convergence to Truth
1 The Nature of Truth
2 Towards an Exact Concept of Correspondence
3 Partial Truth
4 The Emergence of the Knowledge of Truth
5 Truth-centred Ethics and Ideology
Concluding Remarks
16 Emergence of Disease and Convergence of the Biomedical Sciences
1 Multilevel Systems and Multidisciplinarity
2 What Kind of Entity Is Disease?
3 Diagnosis as an Inverse Problem
4 Knowledge of Mechanism Strengthens Inference
5 Bayesian Number Juggling
6 Decision-theoretic Management of Therapy
7 Medicine between Basic Science and Technology
Concluding Remarks
17 The Emergence of Convergence and Divergence
1 Divergence
2 Convergence
3 Caution against Premature Unification
4 Why Both Processes Are Required
5 Logic and Semantics of Integration
6 Glue
7 Integrated Sciences and Technologies
Concluding Remarks

GLOSSARY

REFERENCES

INDEX OF NAMES

INDEX OF SUBJECTS