Hierarchies and levels of reality

We examine some assumptions about the nature of \u27levels of reality\u27 in the light of examples drawn from physics. Three central assumptions of the standard view of such levels (for instance, Oppenheim and Putnam 1958) are (i) that levels are populated by entities of varying complexity, (ii) that there is a unique hierarchy of levels, ranging from the very small to the very large, and (iii) that the inhabitants of adjacent levels are related bu the parthood relation. Using examples from physics, we argue that it is more natural to view the inhabitants of levels as the behaviors of entities, rather than entities themselves. This suggests an account of reduction between levels, according to which one behavior reduces to another if the two are related by an appropriate limit relation. By considering cases where such inter-level reduction fails, we show the hierarchy of behaviors differs in several respects from the standard hierarchy of entities. In particular, while on the standard view, lower-level entities are \u27micro\u27 parts of higher-level entities, on our view, a system\u27s macro-level behavior can be seen as a (\u27non-spatial\u27) part of its micro-level behavior. We argue that this second hierarchy is not really in conflict with the standard view and that it better suits examples of explanation in science

The Metaphysics of Multi-Level Explanation

It is widely presumed that the world exhibits hierarchical structure: that the objects of science can be arranged into levels and that some of those levels are higher than others. Organisms, on this view, are at a higher level than cells, which are at a higher level than molecules, which are at a higher level than atoms. Although it is popular, this "layered worldview" faces notable challenges. Some critics contend that it is hopelessly idealized or even ultimately incoherent. Others contend that it makes no difference to our explanatory practices and has no metaphysical or epistemic significance. I argue that these critics are mistaken. By undertaking a comprehensive analysis of the logical and metaphysical nature of hierarchical structures and their application within contemporary philosophy and ecology, I argue for three claims: that hierarchies exist (insofar as the objects of scientific discourse exist); that the domain of ecological interests is hierarchically structured in a way that is incompatible with ontological reductionism - the idea that everything in the scientific domain is, in fact, contained within the "fundamental level of reality"; and that the hierarchical structure of the world often (but not always) justifies the practice of describing, explaining, and analyzing things using hierarchical terms. My analysis begins with a review of the existing accounts of hierarchies in ecology, biology, sociology, and economics. Arguing that these accounts are inadequate, I then develop an improved account called Core Hierarchy Theory (CHT). CHT, I argue, is an improvement over its predecessors in two respects: generality and simplicity. Other accounts are either too narrow (e.g., failing to count branching hierarchies as genuine hierarchies) or make unnecessary theoretical commitments. Using a formalized version of CHT, I then prove four theorems that are relevant to well-known philosophical debates that involve hierarchies. For example, I show that two of the core metaphysical commitments of the ontological reductionist - that the higher level sciences reduce to fundamental science and that all of reality is, in fact, contained within the fundamental level - are in fact inconsistent with the most basic and unrestricted conception of hierarchical structures provided by CHT

Trust within the Organizations of the New Economy: an Empirical Analysis of the Consequences of Institutional Uncertainty

This study investigates the effects of different institutional frameworks on the levels of trust within hierarchies. Following the insight into the changing of labour contracts provided by New Economy theorists and International Labour Organization [ILO] reports, this study investigates the possible differences in the levels of trust between two paradigms: the Old Economy and the New Economy. We argue that singular institutional changes which better characterize the New Economy in the form of environmental uncertainty set considerable constrains on trust development. By approaching trust as a dependent variable in a cross-industrial comparison, a questionnaire survey was carried out in Brazil accessing the levels of trust within seven Brazilian private companies. From the literature review and empirical observation of the reality of these organizations, companies were identified and classified into different groups. The study concludes that relative high institutional uncertainty considerably limits the development of trust levels within those companies operating in the New Economy

Imagined Hierarchies as Conditionals of Gender in Aesthetics

The attributes of gender in the media are disputable. This can be explained by a conflict generated by culturally acquired alternative imagined hierarchies which are not compatible or may be even contradictory. This article is a philosophical enquiry that examines the representation of gender and the environment in which it is conditioned

A review of data visualization: opportunities in manufacturing sequence management.

Data visualization now benefits from developments in technologies that offer innovative ways of presenting complex data. Potentially these have widespread application in communicating the complex information domains typical of manufacturing sequence management environments for global enterprises. In this paper the authors review the visualization functionalities, techniques and applications reported in literature, map these to manufacturing sequence information presentation requirements and identify the opportunities available and likely development paths. Current leading-edge practice in dynamic updating and communication with suppliers is not being exploited in manufacturing sequence management; it could provide significant benefits to manufacturing business. In the context of global manufacturing operations and broad-based user communities with differing needs served by common data sets, tool functionality is generally ahead of user application

Governance, scale and the environment: the importance of recognizing knowledge claims in transdisciplinary arenas

Any present day approach of the world’s most pressing environmental problems involves both scale and governance issues. After all, current local events might have long-term global consequences (the scale issue) and solving complex environmental problems requires policy makers to think and govern beyond generally used time-space scales (the governance issue). To an increasing extent, the various scientists in these fields have used concepts like social-ecological systems, hierarchies, scales and levels to understand and explain the “complex cross-scale dynamics” of issues like climate change. A large part of this work manifests a realist paradigm: the scales and levels, either in ecological processes or in governance systems, are considered as “real”. However, various scholars question this position and claim that scales and levels are continuously (re)constructed in the interfaces of science, society, politics and nature. Some of these critics even prefer to adopt a non-scalar approach, doing away with notions such as hierarchy, scale and level. Here we take another route, however. We try to overcome the realist-constructionist dualism by advocating a dialogue between them on the basis of exchanging and reflecting on different knowledge claims in transdisciplinary arenas. We describe two important developments, one in the ecological scaling literature and the other in the governance literature, which we consider to provide a basis for such a dialogue. We will argue that scale issues, governance practices as well as their mutual interdependencies should be considered as human constructs, although dialectically related to nature’s materiality, and therefore as contested processes, requiring intensive and continuous dialogue and cooperation among natural scientists, social scientists, policy makers and citizens alike. They also require critical reflection on scientists’ roles and on academic practices in general. Acknowledging knowledge claims provides a common ground and point of departure for such cooperation, something we think is not yet sufficiently happening, but which is essential in addressing today’s environmental problems

Ontological theory for ontological engineering: Biomedical systems information integration

Software application ontologies have the potential to become the keystone in state-of-the-art information management techniques. It is expected that these ontologies will support the sort of reasoning power required to navigate large and complex terminologies correctly and efficiently. Yet, there is one problem in particular that continues to stand in our way. As these terminological structures increase in size and complexity, and the drive to integrate them inevitably swells, it is clear that the level of consistency required for such navigation will become correspondingly difficult to maintain. While descriptive semantic representations are certainly a necessary component to any adequate ontology-based system, so long as ontology engineers rely solely on semantic information, without a sound ontological theory informing their modeling decisions, this goal will surely remain out of reach. In this paper we describe how Language and Computing nv (L&C), along with The Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Sciences (IFOMIS), are working towards developing and implementing just such a theory, combining the open software architecture of L&C’s LinkSuiteTM with the philosophical rigor of IFOMIS’s Basic Formal Ontology. In this way we aim to move beyond the more or less simple controlled vocabularies that have dominated the industry to date