The strong emergence of molecular structure

One of the most plausible and widely discussed examples of strong emergence is molecular structure. The only detailed account of it, which has been very influential, is due to Robin Hendry and is formulated in terms of downward causation. This paper explains Hendry’s account of the strong emergence of molecular structure and argues that it is coherent only if one assumes a diachronic reflexive notion of downward causation. However, in the context of this notion of downward causation, the strong emergence of molecular structure faces three challenges that have not been met and which have so far remained unnoticed. First, the putative empirical evidence presented for the strong emergence of molecular structure equally undermines supervenience, which is one of the main tenets of strong emergence. Secondly, it is ambiguous how the assumption of determinate nuclear positions is invoked for the support of strong emergence, as the role of this assumption in Hendry’s argument can be interpreted in more than one way. Lastly, there are understandings of causation which render the postulation of a downward causal relation between a molecule’s structure and its quantum mechanical entities, untenable

Levels of organization: a deflationary account

The idea of levels of organization plays a central role in the philosophy of the life sciences. In this article, I first examine the explanatory goals that have motivated accounts of levels of organization. I then show that the most state-of-the-art and scientifically plausible account of levels of organization, the account of levels of mechanism proposed by Bechtel and Craver, is fundamentally problematic. Finally, I argue that the explanatory goals can be reached by adopting a deflationary approach, where levels of organization give way to more well-defined and fundamental notions, such as scale and composition

Multilevel Reality, Mechanistic Explanations, and Intertheoretic Reductions

In this paper I argue that the question of interlevel explanations runs against the old and thorny problem of the intertheoretical reductions. In order to find a clue as to the solution of this last problem, I shall distinguish, though only provisionally and ideal-typically, between two sorts of intertheoretical or interlevel relations, a weak and a strong one. This distinction, somewhat like a masonry falsework, will be at least in a sense removed, because both types of reduction cannot exist in their pure form. They are only idealised forms of reduction, ideal types between which we find an indefinite number of intermediate forms of actual reductions. In both cases, relating multiple perspectives to one another to better understand the subject-matter under investigation requires constructing a new, wider or deeper perspective. And in both cases, the question of interlevel explanatory reductions, just as that of intertheoretical ones, cannot be answered abstractly, by purely philosophical considerations, but only with reference to, and in accordance with, the practice of scientists and the history of science. This is true not only for physical, but also for biological theories, as I shall briefly illustrate by two examples taken from biology (the protein folding field and today\u2019s debate about cancer research)