Heterogeneity and Emergence in the Social Sciences - a podcast by MCMP Team

Frederik Willemarck (Birkbeck) gives a talk at the MCMP conference "Reduction and Emergence in the Sciences" (14-16 November, 2013) titled "Heterogeneity and Emergence in the Social Sciences". Abstract: In my paper, I focus on the relationship between collective properties (pertaining to collectives) and individualistic properties (pertaining to individual persons) in the social sciences. I argue that there is a sub-class of collective properties—I call them heterogeneous (collective) properties—which fail to reduce to, and supervene on, individualistic properties. In addition, I also show that heterogeneous properties have real causal power, at least in the sense that they are capable of influencing events at the individualistic level. I thus conclude that heterogeneous properties should be interpreted as emergent properties in the social context.

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