Emergence and Downward Determination

he concept of emergence made a comeback on the philosophical scene in the 1990s. This special issue of C&HK contributes to the opening of these new avenues by gathering innovative approaches to the problem of emergence from different theoretical perspectives. In particular it emphasizes the contributions of sciences of complexity and cybernetics to the treatment of emergence. After all, emergence has been a concept largely used in general systems theory and cybernetics. The special issue is organized in the form of discussions around four position papers by Argyris Arnellos et al., Mark Bickhard, John Collier, and Fabiano de Souza Vieira and Charbel Nio El-Hani followed by a commentary by another researcher in the field, and a reply from the original authors.