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Emergence, Not Supervenience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Paul Humphreys
Paul Humphreys*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
*
†Corcoran Department of Philosophy, 521 Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA. [email protected]
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Abstract

I argue that supervenience is an inadequate device for representing relations between different levels of phenomena. I then provide six criteria that emergent phenomena seem to satisfy. Using examples drawn from macroscopic physics, I suggest that such emergent features may well be quite common in the physical realm.

Type
Symposium: Emergence and Supervenience: Alternatives to Unity by Reduction
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 64 , Issue S4: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Dec., 1997 , 1997 , pp. S337 - S345
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1997

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