ABSTRACT
The concept of emergence appears in various places within the literature on expertise and
expert practice. Here, I examine some of these applications of emergence in the light of two
prominent accounts of emergence from the philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. I
evaluate these accounts with respect to several specific contexts in which emergence seems to be
an appropriate way of characterizing expertise in groups. While it is sometimes assumed that
emergent phenomena are in some way inexplicable, the two accounts of emergence I discuss
highlight ways in which the concept of emergence relates to specific styles of explanation.
