Kontopoulos: The Logics of Social Structure

Kontopoulos, K., 1993. The Logics of Social Structure, Cambridge University Press.

Ch. 1: Epistemic Strategies in Contemporary Science

The author identifies five distinct epistemic strategies:

“(1) We may define the strategy of reduction…as adhering to a strict microdeterminsim; that is, wholes are nothing more than their parts suitably combined to form a certain level of complexity and, thus, that higher levels of organization are determined and explained by their lower levels of organization, down to the most elementary level of quantum physics (2) In contrast, the strategy of construction or composition is rooted in a partial microdeterminsim, but also pays significant attention to relational-interactional and contextual-ecological variables. That is, this strategy considers the higher levels of organization as products not merely of the aggregation or integration of lower level parts, but of the interaction of these parts with the contextual-ecological ‘exigencies.’ The result is a constructionist, weak emergence of novel forms and properties practically irreducible to their constituent parts. (3) The strategy of heterarchy (moderate emergence), the newest and, admittedly, least developed, strategy, is defined as underdetermination of the macrostructure(s) by the given microparts and as semiautonomous emergence of higher-level phenomena out of lower level phenomena. Therefore it is a strate4gy that supports a nonreductivematerialist position, explaining the emergence of novelty and higher-level properties and laws without falling into untenable dualist or idealist traps. (4) Hierarchy (strong emergency), is a full-fledged hierarchical emergence of more robust macroentities and partial overdetermination of the microparts by the dominant, organizing principles of the new higher entities. Hierarchy is a modified, and clearly more defensible, substitute for holism. (5) Finally, the strategy of systemic transcendence (systemic functionalism, vitalism, holism) is defined as a downward, strong determination of the microparts by the macrosystem; the latter seen as an autonomous, higher entity superimposed on the lower systemic parts in a control-hierarchical manner that clearly supports the claims of a dualist metaphysics” (12-3).

Kontopoulos then goes on to highlight these different epistemic approaches.

“As a caveat, we must begin with the recognition that the concept of emergence is one of the most elusive, pluri-semantic, patently charged concepts in the current vocabulary of science and philosophy; the analytical eludication of the term is still in progress and the task now looks to be richer yet harder and more controversial than origicanlly thought” (20).

Kontopoulos lists different concepts of emergence:

“Level 0: the Democritean…notion of integration, subject to reduction
Level 1: two notions of weak emergence:
1.1: an ecological-contextual notion of emergence at the prebiotic levels
1.2: an evolutionist-selectionist…notion of emergence in the neo-Darwinian and post-=Darwinian sense
Level 2: a moderate notion of emergence of semi-autonomous macrostructures heterarchically related to the microparts and underdetermined by them
Level 3: the strong notion of emergence as a hierarchy based on applied constraints and a peculiar downward control
Level 4: a transcending notion—if the hypothesis of group and species selection…find strong support—emphasizing holism, strong macrodetermination of microparts, vitalism, and mentalism. The notion of dualist control also belongs here” (21).

What does emergence look like at the higher levels as defined above?: “Generally speaking, most of the significant contributors opt to explain emergence in terms of some particular notion of constraints superimposed on entities in a cumulative, successive mode…For the time being it suffices to point out that the talk of ‘constraints’ refers descriptively to the process of the restriction of a system’s ‘degrees of freedom’; the existence of such constraints appears as, at least, the necessary, if not sufficient, condition for robust emergence to occur” (22).