The Metaphysics of Emergence

Everything in the Universe has emerged, in some sense, since the Big Bang. But the concept of emergence is problematic and controversial. The Metaphysics of Emergence contends that the contemporary philosophical debates are vitiated by the persistence of the traditional assumption that what primarily exists are particular entities: things. Instead it presents a sustained argument for recognizing generic processes as primary.

This radical alternative finds support from interpreting the sub-atomic 'particles' of contemporary physics as nodes in a quantum field, and resolves long-standing problems of explaining identity over time. Campbell then proceeds to develop a metaphysical taxonomy of emergent entities, showing how all biological creatures maintain themselves by changing their interaction with their environments. This approach enables a fruitful account of emergence, and provides reasons to reject the widespread view that reality is determined by its physical basis. The book concludes with a discussion of human mentality, values, and freedom.

Richard Campbell AM is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at The Australian National University. He has served as Dean of Arts and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the ANU, and was for 15 years also involved in restructuring the system of school education in the Australian Capital Territory. In 1986 he was installed by Queen Elizabeth II as a Member of the Order of Australia. He is author of Secondary Education for Canberra (1973), From Belief to Understanding (1976), Truth and Historicity (1992), The Concept of Truth (2011), and numerous articles.

PART I: PROCESSES AND ENTITIES
1.1 Change and Stability
1.2 The Need for a New Metaphysics
1.3 An Overview of the Project
1.4 A Terminological Difficulty
PART II: THE METAPHYSICS OF PARTICULAR ENTITIES
2.1 The Reification of Being and the Unreality of Change
2.2 The Invention of the Timeless
2.3 Entity as the Primary Category
2.4 Entities as Countable Particulars
2.5 The Invention of Material
2.6 Explaining Change
2.7 The Disintegration of the Aristotelian Explanatory Model
2.8 Descartes' Metaphysical Dichotomy
2.9 Locke, Newton and the 'Corpuscular Philosophy'
2.10 The Rise of Physicalist Metaphysics
PART III: CONCEPTUAL SHIFTS IN PHYSICS
3.1 The Invention of Physical Science
3.2 The Fate of 'Matter'
3.3 The Superseding of Newtonian Physics
3.4 Reconceptualizing 'Particles'
3.5 'Particles' and Quantum Fields
3.6 Conceptualizing Quantum Phenomena
3.7 Realist Interpretations of QFT
3.8 Metaphysical Implications
PART IV: THE CATEGORY OF GENERIC PROCESSES
4.1 Processes, Stuffs, and Particulars
4.2 Generic and Specific Processes
4.3 Identifying Categories
4.4 The Logic of Process-descriptions
4.5 Processes, Entities, and their Parts
4.6 Re-categorizing Countables
4.7 The 'Part-of' Relation
4.8 Processes and Series of Events
4.9 Whitehead's Process Metaphysics
PART V: IDENTITY THROUGH CHANGE
5.1 Identity and Discernible Difference
5.2 Identity as Continuity of Temporal Parts
5.3 Change in Four-dimensional Entities
5.4 Common Assumptions
5.5 Heraclitus' Insight
5.6 Change in Enduring Entities
5.7 Sameness across Different Times
5.8 The Types of Generic Process
PART VI: A METAPHYSICAL TAXONOMY OF EMERGENT ENTITIES
6.1 Processes and their Organizations
6.2 Persistence and Stability
6.3 Entities as Cohesive Organizations of Processes
6.4 Energy-wells
6.5 Far-from-Equilibrium Stability
6.6 Self-maintenant Systems
6.7 Recursively Self-maintenant Systems
6.8 The Status of the Concept of Recursive Self-maintenance
PART VII: AN EVOLUTIONARY TAXONOMY OF TYPES OF ACTION AND LIFE
7.1 Agency and Causation
7.2 Goal-Directedness
7.3 Serving a Function
7.4 Liability to Error
7.5 Minimal Action
7.6 Selective Action
7.7 Error Detection
7.8 Flexible Learners
7.9 Self-reflective Persons interacting with Externalized Knowledge
7.10 Social Institutions and Groups
7.11 Conclusion
PART VIII: THE CONCEPT OF EMERGENCE
8.1 Clarifying the Issues
8.2 'Emergence Bases' and Open Systems
8.3 A Definition of Emergence
8.4 Emergence and Non-linearity
8.5 Self-organization
8.6 Emergence and Reduction
8.7 Emergence and the Causal Exclusion Argument
8.8 Downward Causation and Physical Laws
PART IX: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PHYSICALISM
9.1 Defining Physicalism in terms of 'Physical Objects'
9.2 Defining Physicalism in terms of Physical Theory
9.3 Mereological Supervenience
9.4 The Irreducibility of Actions
9.5 Non-reductive Supervenience
9.6 Humean Supervenience
9.7 Global Supervenience
9.8 Basic Particulars
9.9 Physicalism without Particulars?
PART X: THE MENTAL ACTIVITY OF HUMAN BEINGS
10.1 Intentionality and Mental Content
10.2 Correspondence Accounts of Representations
10.3 The Interactive Model of Representations
10.4 The Emergence of Awareness
10.5 The 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness
10.6 Sensory Experience
10.7 The Emergence of Reflective Consciousness
10.8 Rationality
10.9 Being Conscious of Oneself
PART XI: FURTHER REFLECTIONS
11.1 Time
11.2 The Puzzle about Entropy
11.3 The Emergence of Values
11.4 Freedom and Causation
11.5 Concluding Reflections