ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that one direct consequence of Luhmann's failure is to address appropriately the issues concerning emergence, and explains why Luhmann's theory is, in fundamental ways, out of step with contemporary science. The emergentists' objective was to carve a middle course between mechanistic materialism and the vitalism in the biology of the day. Materialists appeared unable to explain life and consciousness, and vitalists were committed to a nonmaterial substance to explain life. An epistemological approach to emergence, as Bunge observes, seems to confront one with the dilemma that if emergence is acknowledged and conceived of as mysterious. The principle of rationality has to be abandoned, but the denial of emergence also seems detrimental for it brings us nowhere near appreciating the complexity of the world. By contrast, for Bunge, emergence, as the ontological category of qualitative novelty, can be explained, at least in principle, in terms of the parts and their interactions.
