Kim On Emergence And Downward Causation

The ontological emergence has become the most conspicuous emergence problem.Ontological emergentists believe that in the process of material construction from simple to complex,the complex structure of material is not always the simple aggregation of simple things,and there is a hierarchical relationship between the target object and the physical structure based on the gradual increase of complexity of material structure.Based on the hierarchical relationship,we can give a rough definition of emergent: emergent entities(or emergent properties,emergent substances)"emerge from more basic entities",for which emergent entities(or emergent properties,emergent substances)are "novel" or "non-reducible".For example,we sometimes say that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.Philosophers represented by broad among scholars of "British Emergentism" consider ontological Emergentism to be an absolute supervenience relationship with a fundamental nomological necessity status.This supervenient ontological emergence is widely regarded as the standard expression of ontological emergence.However,many philosophers,represented by Kim,are skeptical of the supervenient ontological emergence.Kim expounded his basic views on emergence theory in his papers "Making sense of emergence"(1999)and "Emergence: Core Ideas and Issues "(2006).In understanding emergence,Kim negates the downward causation of emergent property by using the exclusive argument,and shows that emergentism is actually a epiphenomenon.He believes that emergent property can only be affected as the end of causal chain,and doubts the unique causal power of emergent properties.However,there is a lot of controversy about Kim’s exclusive argument of the downward causation.Many philosophers argue that the premise of the exclusive argument is the closure of the physical world,which excludes the causal power of mental properties.Besides,many philosophers think that Kims "two-stage" argument itself is flawed.On the basis of related research,this paper integrates the Kim’s main standpoints on emergentism,combs and reflects Kim’s main difficulties on downward causation problems on emergentism,it also explores the multiple paths to understand emergentism by focusing on the responses and debates of the philosophers of emergentism at home and abroad on Kim’s theory.