The quest for emergence

The Quest for Emergence is a comprehensive philosophical intro-duction to emergence. It includes the illustration and discussion of the major varieties of emergentism. The book also introduces many scientific examples of emergence and all the problems and objections affecting emergentism. In the introduction, the author provides a characterization of emer-gence and of some key distinctions: for example, the one between weak and strong emergence. The second chapter contains a short history of British Emergentism. The configurational forces objection against emergentism is also discussed. In the third chapter, some cases of weak and strong emergence taken from different scientific disciplines are described in an accessible and informal language. Emergence is considered in physics, chemistry, biology, the neurosciences and informatics, psychology, sociology and economics. In the fourth chapter, the worst enemy of emergentists is introduced: micro-physicalism. All the problems and objections against emergentism are presented and discussed, including Jaegwon Kim’s arguments. After having recalled in the fifth chapter all the desiderata a good emergentist theory should be able to satisfy and all the problems it should be able to solve, the author devotes the sixth chapter to ex-amining many current varieties of emergentism. Finally, in the sev-enth chapter, he draws a sketch of his own emergentist theory, which is based on two ideas: emergence primarily concerns powers; emergents exercise downward causation through formal influence.