The Contingent Subject. For a Radical Theory of Emergence in Developmental Processes

The author intends to give the outlines of a possible "radical theory of emergence" in development processes (biological and cognitive). Said theory should be based on two main observations: 1) development processes are emergence phenomena starting from reticular connections that concern the integrated totality of the systems being studied (internal source of the order); 2) development processes occur within structurally coupled systems whose co-evolutional structure has characteristics of irreducible uniqueness and contingency (external source of the order). The endogenous aspect and the exogenous aspect in the production of order in complex systems are here to be understood as being complementary and simultaneous. The two observations on the exo-endogenous character of development can then be generalized into a third: the crisis of the computational paradigm is read via the crisis of adaptationalist thought, sketched by biologists like Francisco Varela, by evolutionists like Stephen J. Gould and Richard Lewontin, as well as philosophers of biology like Susan Oyama. Following the latter's Development Systems Theory (DST), two possible directions are here explored to formulate an epistemological reflection on development in an emergentist and co-evolutionist key: a) a direction that tries to trace the "ontogenetic" (i.e. relevant to individual development) origins of the structural subject/object paring, which Varela defined as "embodiment" of knowledge; b) a direction that tries to trace the "phylogenic" (i.e. relevant to the biological evolution of our species) origins of this "incarnation" of the mind.