The Cognitive Revolution Many authors have noted a connection between the Cognitive Revolution and Gestalt Psychology: Both share anti-reductionist, anti-physicalist impulses. Both approaches believe that if higher-level mental phenomena are mere epiphenomena then why should scientific psychology attempt to study them? The cognitive revolution proposed that mental phenomena could be scientifically studied without first being reduced to associationist atoms or brain processes. The first cognitive psychologists (such as George Miller) were heavily influenced by cybernetics and systems theory, which had identified feedback and homeostasis at the level of complex systems as crucial for emergent processes. The cognitive revolution unleashed philosophical activity to try to create a form of materialism that is compatible with mentalism (i.e., that is non-reductionist). (Before the cognitive revolution, the philosophy of mind had become rather moribund). In Psychology, authors such as Roger Sperry's non-reductive materialism (1965) were attempts to achieve such a theory. In Philosophy the dormant mind-brain debate was reactivated. In that renewed debate, terms from the 1920s (such as emergence, supervenience, etc) resurfaced. The revived Philosophical debate centred around: - Identity theorists holding the epiphenomenalist position - Nonreductive Materialists (e.g., functionalists) holding that mental properties are not reducible to physical ones (Fodor, Davidson) and may have causal powers over lower-levels - The importance of computational processes versus biological processes (e.g., Searle's Chinese room, and the syntax-semantics debate) Jean Piaget's Genetic Epistemology was a major influence on the Cognitive Revolution. Only Piaget's early (and largely de_script_ive) works were known in the English speaking world. In the late 1950s and early 1960s many new translations appeared, and a textbook (Flavell, 1963) made Piaget's ideas accessible to a wide audience. Piaget opposed the reductionist atomism of behaviourism, and was influenced by Henri Bergson (process _meta_physician) and also sociologists such as Emile Durkheim. Piaget's notion of constructivism is similar to emergence in that the schemas (the sensori-motor, and later cognitive structures making knowledge possible) characteristic of a particular stage emerge from the schemas of a prior stage through a process of interaction with the environment. Piaget's bottom-up explanations of knowledge construction rejected the idea that higher-level phenomena can be analysed and explained without reference to their components (and in this regard he differs from some other emergentists). However, once a schema/stage had emerged, Piaget tended to be Holist about that schema or stage, seeing it as an irreducible whole with causal powers to influence lower-level behaviour. Much emergentism in Psychology is synchronic - Piaget (and others influenced by process _meta_physicians) was diachronic, emerging from interaction. Sociological Emergence Emergentism has been just as influential in Sociology as in Psychology. It is worth considering emergentism in Sociology partly because arguments developed in Sociology have influenced Psychology, and because Socioculturalism - a modern movement in Psychology - is explicitly influenced by sociological emergentism. Perhaps the most famous holist/emergentist in Sociology is Emile Durkheim. In the preface to one of his books Durkheim wrote a classic statement of Holism: Whenever certain elements combine and thereby produce, by the fact of their combination, new phenomena, it is plain that these new phenomena reside not in the original elements but in the totality formed by their union . Let us apply this principle to sociology. If as we say, this synthesis constituting every society yields new phenomena, differing from those which take place in individual consciousness, we must, indeed, admit that these facts reside exclusively in the very society itself which produces them, and not in its parts, i.e., its members . These new phenomena cannot be reduced to their elements (Durkheim, 1901, pp. xlvii-xlviii) Durkheim viewed psychological phenomena as emergent, quoting William James that the self is itself a society constituted from many compounds. He argued that such emergents are not epiphenomena, but have causal powers over lower-levels. Further, just as psychological phenomena emerge, so social phenomena must emerge, and have similar causal powers over individuals. Psychologists who are critical of the idea of emergent social phenomena should consider the status of their own discipline as an epiphenomenon when attacking the reality of social structures. Talcott Parsons was critical of the holism in Durkheim's thought, but he nevertheless developed an emergentist theory of society. Parsons was strongly influenced by cybernetics and systems theory, developed in the 1930s. Parsons defined sociology as the study of the emergent properties of social action systems , and argued that both unit acts and action systems were irreducible. He rejected a sociological holism (sociological dualism) that denies the relevance of individual psychology: The mechanisms of the processes that a sociologist is interested in will always prove to involve crucially important elements on these 'lower' levels (1937, p. 772) Sociological holism (of the kind espoused by Durkheim) has been strongly opposed, particularly in economics. Even emergentist theories have been opposed. Reductionism in sociology is known as methodological  individualism - the position that all social phenomena can be explained in terms of individuals and the relations amongst individuals. Emergent social phenomena can, these critics maintain, be reduced by bridging laws, to the actions of individuals. Perhaps one of the stronger statements of methodological individualism can be found in the work of F A von Hayek. He rejected sociological holism, but saw social phenomena as emergent from but reducible to individual action: The conscious action of many men produce undesigned results . regularities which are not the result of anybody's design. If social phenomena showed no order except in so far as they were consciously designed, there would indeed be no room for theoretical sciences of society and there would be, as is often argued, only problems of psychology . The reason of the difficulty which the natural scientist experiences in admitting the existence of such an order in social phenomena is that these orders cannot be stated in physical terms (1942, p. 288). Examples illustrating von Hayeck's ideas include forest trails that form gradually as hundreds of people seek the best path through the forest. According to von Hayek, social science has to seek the best explanation for how such patterns emerge. Stronger reductionist claims have been made by subsequent methodological individualists. Methodological individualism is a view found most often in Economics, but it is also defended and elaborated upon by political scientists like Jon Elster. Emergence in Contemporary Psychology Concepts of emergence are of more than purely historical interest in contemporary psychology. Two recent psychological movements use the idea of emergence as a central concept. They are Socioculturalism and Connectionist Cognitive Science. Socioculturalism Sociocultural Psychology is a revival of some of the trends in the late 19th and early 20th century: organicism, process _meta_physics, the psychological holism of the Gestaltists (especially Lewin). The movement emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, and includes cultural psychologists, Vygotskian influenced educational theorists, and those studying situated action and cognition (Bruner, Lave, Valsiner, Wertsch, etc). The approach attempts to extend psychology by taking into account how meaningful activity is generated in social contexts. They reject reduction to individual-level explanations and appeal to an event or situated action level of analysis. Intelligent behaviour is seen to emerge from the socially situated interactions of individuals and is not a product that resides in the head. For example, Barbara Rogoff asserts that knowledge itself is not reducible to individual cognitive representations: the assumption of abilities or skills as stable possessions of individuals . we argue should be dropped in the sociocultural approach (1995, p. 144). The focus, in this approach, is on the process and individuals' participation in and contributions to the ongoing activity (1995, p. 144). Piaget's idea of knowledge as a joint construction is extended to the idea that knowledge is jointly constructed in social activity. The work of Lev Vygotsky has had a powerful impact on the sociocultural approach. Vygotsky's work was rediscovered in the late 1960s and 1970s (rather later than Piaget). Vygotsky was writing between 1924 and 1934, and was thus influenced the historical emergentist movements at that time. In his books and articles Vygotsky rejected the atomism of behaviourism and of of introspectionism. He drew on several varieties of 19th  century sociological holism in proposing that psychological wholes originated in collective life (Durkheim, Levy-Bruhl, etc). He focused on social units of analysis that were irreducible and functionally integrated wholes. Since, in his theory,   all higher mental functions are internalised social relationships Vygotsky expanded on Gestaltist theory by examining both psychological and social wholes and how they were related in development - how individual response emerges from the forms of collective life (1981, p. 164). Vygotsky was a social holist, and didn't try to explain the emergence of social phenomena from individuals and interactions, but saw the social wholes as having primacy over individuals. Modern socioculturalists
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discipline - is explicitly reductionist, This, again, appears to be the nub of the argument. How can there be an argument  against 'reductionism'? Anything other is clealy bullshit. Still, if you can get yourself a degree (maybe even a PhD) through bullshit and this degree and the consequent jobs and money matter to you, then what impetus is there for you to consider the alternative of acutally being rational.

discipline - is explicitly reductionist, This, again, appears to be the nub of the argument. How can there be an argument  against 'reductionism'? Anything other is clealy bullshit. Still, if you can get yourself a degree (maybe even a PhD) through bullshit and this degree and the consequent jobs and money matter to you, then what impetus is there for you to consider the alternative of acutally being rational. _________ Reply: I am glad to see you have qualified as a psychiatrist and can certify people as sane or insane. I gave you a history of the idea. (It may not be what you thought other people thought, but that is another matter). It _base_d on a reading of many books and articles. If the idea isn't one you share, at least you can see how others have thought. I didn't pass judgement on the idea, though I did suggest that there were some unresolved issues . Perhaps those issues can be resolved, perhaps they can't. But I am afraid I wouldn't simply take your word for it, either way, any more than you would take mine. Lance

I gave you a history of the idea. (It may not be what you thought other people thought, but that is another matter). It _base_d on a reading of many books and articles. If the idea isn't one you share, at least you can see how others have thought. I didn't pass judgement on the idea, though I did suggest that there were some unresolved issues . Perhaps those issues can be resolved, perhaps they can't. But I am afraid I wouldn't simply take your word for it, either way, any more than you would take mine. It is wise not to take my unvarnished words as gospel - indeed, as you point out, it is unwise to take any words that way.

- The Definitional Issue: Which Systems can be said to truly manifest Emergence? Who cares? Peter

Lance < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it wrote in message Much of main stream Psychology today - indeed by far the greater part of the discipline - is explicitly reductionist, This, again, appears to be the nub of the argument. How can there be an argument  against 'reductionism'? Anything other is clealy bullshit. I suspect this may be a fairly common reaction, but it would be interesting to delve a little deeper.  Do you consider anything other than reductionism to be clearly bullshit because it involves a logical inconsistency?  Or because it runs counter to accumulated evidence?  Or for some other reason? Regards, Philip.