This dualism of resultance and emergence is merely a new
verbal vesture for the hylomorphic dualism of Aristotle. The
_additive_ properties (_resultants_) are based on _matter_,
which is the principle of _continuity_. The _specificative_
(constituitive or qualitative) properties called emergents
are rooted in _entelechy_ (form), which is the principle of
_novelty_. In fact, entelechy (form) itself is _an emergent of
matter_ just as the specificative properties are _emergents_
of matter, with the sole difference that _entelechy_ is
_the primary emergent_ of matter, whereas the specificative
or qualitative properties are _secondary emergents_. For
in Aristotelian philosophy, entelechy is not, as it is in
Neo-vitalism, “an alien principle inserted into matter”
abruptly and capriciously “at the level of life,” but a
_primary emergent_ and _constituent_ of matter both living
and non-living. In fine, entelechy is an _emergent_ of matter
in all the units of nature from the simplest atom to the
most complex plant or animal organism. The only entelechy,
which is not an _emergent_, but an _insert_ into matter, is
the _spiritual human soul_. Neither the human soul nor the
_superorganic_ functions rooted in it, namely, abstraction,
reflection, and election, are _emergents_. Here we have
_novelty without continuity_, and therefore not _emergence_
(eduction), but _insertion_ (infusion).
In his “Emergent Evolution,” 1923, Lloyd Morgan lays it down
as axiomatic that _emergence involves continuity_—“There
may often be resultants,” he says, “without emergence; but
there are no emergents that do not involve resultant effects
also. Resultants give quantitative continuity which underlies
new constitutive steps in emergence.” (_Op. cit._, p. 5.)
Now our proofs for human spirituality consist precisely in
the _complete exclusion of quantitative continuity_ between
_organic_ functions (_e. g._ sensation) and _superorganic_
functions (_e. g._ conceptual thought and free volition).
Hence, by the very axiom which Morgan himself formulates,
the human soul and its _superorganic functions_ are excluded
from the category of material _emergents_. If there can be no
emergence without quantitative continuity, then the human soul
is not an _emergent from_, but an _insert into_, matter. _Free
choice_, too, it is needless to say, is not an _emergent of
matter_, but an _expression of the supermaterial nature of the
human soul_. So much for the new-old dualism of emergence and
resultance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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