Emergentism and the Process Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead

Whitehead never described himself as an emergentist. However, it is not possible to dissociate him completely from the idea of emergentism - their interpenetrations and interactions are too strong. lf one then looks for emergentism in Whitehead's philosophy, it is a very specific emergentism. His emergentism seems more real than the concepts proposed by his contemporaries. lt is no longer merely a creative principle. Whitehead's emergentism is not just an  epistemological aspect of the world but has become a strong ontological structure. lt reflects the dynamics of creative structures not only at the level of the creation of new objects, but it creates the dynamics of the universe. lt becomes the basis for understanding the world.

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Emergentism arose as a via media between reductionism (mechanism) and vitalism. From the first use of the term "emergence" by George Henry Lewes, through Mill, to British emergentists such as: Samuel Alexander, Lloyd Morgan, Charlie Dunbar Broad. British emergentism failed not so much because of philosophical  criticism, but rather because of a neo-positivist interpretation of scientific achievements. ( ...) The collapse of logical positivism, along with reductionist tendencies, created an atmosphere for nonreductive physicalism, which in turn contributed to the revival of emergentism. The specific openness of Whitehead's system  creates an opportunity to enrich his thought with elements from contemporary emergentism on the one hand, and, on the other, to use Whitehead's philosophy in  contemporary research related to emergentism.

prof. Michał Heller


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Table of contents (shortened)

Introduction

Chapter I
Emergentism
1. The history of emergentism
1.1. The very beginning
1.2. Mechanism versus vitalism
1.3. The emergence of emergence
1.4. The British Emergentists
1.5. The fall
1.6. Before the re-emergence of emergence
2. Emergence
   2.1. Definition
   2.2. The central point of emergence
   2.3. Different types of emergence
   2.4. Different types of arguments for emergence
3. Context
   3.1. Theories of emergence within various scientific fields
   3.2. Levels of emergence within the natural world
   3.3. Patterns across scientifi c theories

Chapter II
The philosophy of A. N. Whitehead
1. The actual and the fundamental in Whitehead’s philosophy: an actual entity
2. Th e eternal in Whitehead’s philosophy
3. God and creativity
4. The process of becoming
   4.1. Prehension
   4.2. Different types of feelings
   4.3. Concrescence
   4.4. Microscopic and macroscopic processes
5. Diff erent types of composite entities
   5.1. Nexus
   5.2. Societies
   5.3. The living person
6. Causality in Whitehead’s philosophy
7. Teleology
   7.1. Subjective aim and decision
   7.2. Coordinate and genetic division of actual occasions
   7.3. Initial aim

Chapter III
Whitehead and emergentism
1. A convergence of times and places: the Giff ord Lectures
2. Direct references between Whitehead and the British Emergentists
    2.1. Whitehead’s process philosophy and Alexander’s evolutionary emergentism
    2.2. Whitehead’s process philosophy and Morgan’s emergent neutralism
3. Whitehead and the question of emergence in the opinion of scholars
    3.1. Whitehead’s infl uence on emergentism
    3.2. Emergence in Whitehead’s philosophy
    3.3. Whitehead’s thought in contemporary emergence studies
4. Conclusion: Whitehead the emergentist

Chapter IV
Whitehead’s philosophy and the conditions of emergence
1. Irreducibility in Whitehead’s philosophy
    1.1. The eliminativism thesis
    1.2. The realist thesis
    1.3. The subjectivist thesis
    1.4. The transcendentist thesis
    1.5. The nature of society
2. Supervenience
3. Downward causation
4. Novelty
5. Naturalism
6. Hierarchy of the levels of existence
7. Unpredictability
8. Conclusion: Whitehead and emergentism

Chapter V
Whitehead’s emergentism
1. Lower and higher grades
2. Cosmic epoch
3. Conclusion

Conclusions
Bibliography