Scientific Emergentism through an Integrative Pluralist Lens

Abstract Mainstream philosophy of science is leery of ‘metaphysics’. Unsurprisingly, a scientific movement like that of self-identified ‘emergentists’ that is built around novel ontological relations in nature—and ‘downward’ ones to boot—has too often been written off by philosophers of sciences. This chapter outlines why the received wisdom is badly mistaken about scientific emergentism because it is wrong about a range of foundational issues. The first half of the chapter highlights how working scientists use a more plural variety of ontic models/explanations than has previously been recognized, including compositional ones, and also outlines how researchers use such ontic models in large, plural, and integrated groups termed ‘coalitions’. The chapter hence clarifies the role of a neglected kind of ‘endogenous metaphysics’ in scientific practice. These points are brought together by sketching the ‘Dynamic Cycle’ by which working scientists create, apply, and assess ontological concepts to underwrite such ontic models. Once we get a grip on these foundational issues, in the chapter’s second half it is shown how we can better understand contemporary scientific emergentism as pursuing the Dynamic Cycle of innovating in ontological concepts to provide new models to help with ongoing scientific problems.