Co-emergences in life and science

a double proposal for biological emergentism

Luisa Damiano

pp. 273-294

in: Hugues Bersini, Pasquale Stano, Pier Luisi, Mark A. Bedau (eds), Philosophical and scientific perspectives on emergence, Synthese 185 (2), 2012.

Abstract

This article addresses the problem of emergence through a distinction, often neglected in the literature, between two different aspects of this issue: (1) the theoretical problem of providing modelizations able to explain the expression of emergent properties; (2) the epistemological problem of warranting the scientific value of the emergentist descriptions of nature. This paper considers this double issue with regard to the biological domain, and proposes a double solution (theoretical and epistemological) originally developed in early studies on self-organization. The underlying hypothesis is that this solution offers the current biological emergentism the opportunity of developing a coherent structure: matching consistently the theoretical and the epistemological frames of the research, that is, coupling the emergentist conception of life with an emergentist conception of science.