Emergentism
General Definition
Emergentism is an ontological current that affirms that new properties can arise in complex systems without being present or predicted in their constituent parts. It is an alternative both to mechanistic reductionism and to spiritualistic explanations, proposing an immanent creativity of matter.
In the Ontology of Emergent Complexity, this creativity is not merely possibility — it is a structuring condition of the real. Emergentism is radicalized here: there is no prior substance, plan, essence, or archetype. All consistency is born from the local reorganization of instability, through operative friction and without a prior model. Symbolic emergence is the originating gesture of reality.
Ontological Variations in the Ontology of Emergent Complexity
Emergentism as Potency of Matter
Matter is understood as an unstable and creative field, capable of generating symbolic forms, subjectivity, and meaning through internal operative reorganization. Nothing comes from outside — everything emerges from complexity itself.
Emergentism as Critique of Essence
Emergentism rejects the existence of fixed essences or archetypes. Every form is transitory, local, and produced, and not the expression of an eternal truth. The real organizes itself through active contingency.
Emergentism and Substance as Effect
In the OCE, substance is not a foundation, but the result of a provisional stabilization. Emergentism dissolves essentialism and shows how every form is an operative effect, not a permanent essence.
Emergentism and Emergence without a Plan
This entry details how the emergentism of the OCE rejects any teleology. Emergence is local, unplanned, the result of frictions and reorganizations that do not obey an exterior purpose.
Emergentism and Plasticity of Truth
Emergentism shifts truth from the eternal order to the provisional organization of the real. Each truth regime is an inscription, not a revelation.