I will leave this issue largely unconsidered. ![]() Some will object to the deployment of some of these arguments, but those writing about the emergence of mental properties will not be a better position to defend themselves.Īlternatively, we may think that these properties emerge from mental properties-that mental properties are that base on which these properties supervene and will not reduce. I only gesture towards how we could argue, however, because it is sufficient to see how the very resources appealed to by emergentists in the philosophy of mind, say, could be just as helpful for our purposes. (See, inter alia, Polger & Shapiro and Bickle for systematic discussions purely on this topic, and see Putnam, Fodor, and Lewis for the relevant history of arguments of this kind.) And there are more arguments besides. (See, inter alia, Heil & Mele, Robb & Heil, and the many works cited within these for arguments of this kind in the context of philosophy of mind.) We could argue on the basis of multiple realizability: a five-dollar bill could have been instantiated by something other than a piece of paper if we had different conventions. For example, we could argue on the basis of causal differences: a five-dollar bill could be argued to have a different causal profile than that of being a piece of paper. Though I will not resolve these debates, I do show a collection of views that would vindicate these properties as strongly emergent and downwardly causing.įor this, we could borrow from the barrage of arguments that have been marshalled to argue for non-identity in the context of material objects or mental properties. I then consider whether their emergence is best framed as weak or strong as these notions are characterized in the literature, and I reveal what debates are central to answering this question. ![]() I characterize how emergence occurs in these cases, juxtaposing it with how emergence is typically discussed. They emerge in part because of a system that is far beyond and typically before the object that instantiates them. Here, however, I focus on the properties instantiated by the elements of certain systems discussed in social ontology, such as being a five-dollar bill or a pawn-movement, and I suggest that these properties emerge in a distinctive way. The emergent property is taken to emerge instantaneously out of, or to be proximately caused by, complex interaction of colocated entities. Emergence is typically discussed in the context of mental properties or the properties of the natural sciences, and accounts of emergence within these contexts tend to look a certain way.
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