Emergence, Exclusion, and the Proper Subset of Powers Strategy [Book Symposium]
Issue: Issue 19 • Author/s: Karen Bennett
Topics: Metaphysics, Ontology
Wilson characterizes weak and strong emergence partly based on their differing solutions to the exclusion problem. The weak emergentist should claim that emergent phenomena and their bases can both cause the same effect without overdetermining it, because they literally share causal powers. I compare this strategy with a different but related strategy also available to the weak emergentist, and argue that the virtues of the former cost more than it appears.