David Sprintzen

If you were a serious student at Queens College in the 1960s or 1970s, you probably took Philosophy 10 at some time in your academic career regardless of your major. You almost certainly had heard of that course, and of the pressure of students seeking to squeeze into the classroom, even if they were unable to register for it. This was John McDermott's class on Aesthetics. It was a Queens College cultural event of the first order. Not only would all of the chairs have been occupied, but students could have been found seated on the floor in all the aisles, and even a few sitting on the windowsills, or standing by the door. As the class unfolded, the blackboard would increasingly take on the appearance of a Jackson...

ABSTRACT This article develops the ontological doctrine of naturalistic emergence, detailing three distinct but related types of emergent structures. It thus provides a coherent framework for making sense of the reality of human freedom, consistent with the operative determinism of natural science. This possibility emerges from taking seriously the implications of the reality of non-separability and decoherence, the significance of conservation laws, and the causal significance of systemic properties. The metaphysics of ontological emergence that is thus suggested reveals the ontological limitations of Aristotelian logic, Cartesian reduction, and their modern epigoni. Specific attention is paid to the formulations of scientific reductionism by E. O. Wilson with his theory of “consilience,” and to Jaegwon Kim’s critique of the doctrine of emergence.

After 350 years of continual social transformations under the push of industrialization, capitalism, world-wide social revolutions, and the development of modern science, what reasonably remains of the traditional faith in divine transcendence and providential design except a deep-felt, almost 'ontological' yearning for transcendence? Torn between outmoded religious traditions and an ascendant secular world, the contemporary celebration of individuality only makes more poignant the need for precisely that religious consolation that public life increasingly denies. People must now confront the meaning of their lives without the assured aid of transcendent purpose and direction. The resulting sense of absence profoundly marks the contemporary world. Confronted with the theoretical problems posed by the absence of absolute values, and the historical problems posed by contemporary social movements, Camus dramatized the urgency of developing guides to humane conduct in a world without transcendence. He continued to believe that only when the dignity of the worker and the respect for intelligence are accorded their rightful place can human existence hope to realize its highest ideals, and our life find the collective meaning and purpose that alone can truly sustain us in the face of an infinite and indifferent universe.