emergentisme

Emergentism is a philosophical position about how higher-level phenomena arise from complex systems. Emergentists hold that while the properties of a whole depend on its parts, the system exhibits novel features that are not reducible to, or fully predictable from, the behavior of the parts alone. Emergence describes a transition at a certain level of organization where new kinds of laws or regularities appear.

Historically, emergentism developed as a challenge to strict reductionism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. British figures such as Samuel Alexander and C. Lloyd Morgan argued that biological and mental phenomena exhibit emergent properties. The term was popularized in the 19th century by George Henry Lewes and subsequently elaborated by other philosophers, including discussions of weak versus strong forms of emergence. In weak emergentism, emergent properties are theoretically derivable from lower-level processes but are epistemically unpredictable; strong emergentism posits that emergent properties have causal powers that can influence lower levels.

In philosophy of mind, emergentism offers a middle ground between dualism and reductive physicalism: mental states depend on brain processes but are not reducible to them. In the philosophy of science and in complexity theory, emergence accounts for higher-level laws and patterns that cannot be straightforwardly derived from the properties of individual components. Critics argue that emergentism may lack precise mechanisms or falsifiable predictions, while supporters claim it captures the explanatory power of complex systems and the appearance of novelty in nature.