Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

this larger level—the ecological level—to be understood. The fact
that there is a mountain range separating two groups of organisms
that share a common ancestor is important when we try to explain
how the two became different species. Looking at the molecular
level would never give us the relevant insight.
This emergentist point of view not only surfaces in work on
biological species, but it also comes into play when we start
thinking about humans. Are there human groups that have a reality
independent of the individuals within them? Intuitively, the answer
is yes. Think about professional sports teams or corporations. Even
though the people in such organizations change, the organizations
remain. Further, we can say things about the organization that are
not true of any single member yet are true of the whole. The group
is a thing with a reality distinct from those who belong to it.
The place where emergence makes its most important debut in
sociology.
Auguste Comte coined the term sociology in 1838 and discussed a
general science of culture. He held that society progressed through
three phases. Cultures begin in the religious phase, where all change is
the result of the will of God. Then, society moves to the metaphysical
phase, where a divine consciousness is replaced with unseen forces.
that there are regularities to the way the world works and that these
are not the result of some supernatural desire or unseen forces.
Comte’s particular theory is not as important to us as the fact that the
subject of his study is the emergent whole of society. He argued that
his phases can be applied to societies of all sorts, from professional
groups to nation-states. His science does not look to explain social
phenomena by appealing to individuals but to the emergent group,
the societal level itself.
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