Glossary / Lexicon

Emergentism is defined as the contention that mental processes emerge from brain processes. The interactionist form of Emergentism claims that once mental states emerge, they can influence subsequent brain activity and thus behavior. The epiphenomenalist form claims that emergent mental states are behaviorally irrelevant. Emergentism, moreover is defined as the view that new knowledge can arise from the interaction of biologically based learning processes and input from the environment. It differs from constructivism in its explicit claim that what emerges from the process of innate structure operating on environmental input can be more than was provided in either the innate structure or the input.