Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: This paper considers how a classification of causal effects as comprising efficient, formal, material, and final causation can provide a useful understanding of how emergence takes place in biology and technology, with formal, material, and final causation all including cases of downward causation; they each occur in both synchronic and diachronic forms. Taken together, they underlie why all emergent levels in the hierarchy of emergence have causal powers (which is Noble's principle of biological relativity) and so why causal closure only occurs when the upwards and downwards interactions between all emergent levels are taken into account, contra to claims that some underlying physics level is by itself causality complete. A key feature is that stochasticity at the molecular level plays an important role in enabling agency to emerge, underlying the possibility of final causation occurring in these contexts.
Source: Entropy
DOI: 10.3390/e25091301
Author: George F. R. Ellis
Institution: University of Cape Town
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,224
Funder: University of Cape Town
OpenAlex ID: W4386439845