There have long been controversies about how minds can fit into a physical universe. In Emergence in Mind a distinguished group of philosophers discuss whether mental properties can be said to 'emerge' from physical processes. The discussion is extended to cover the role emergence may play in free will and agency, and in the special sciences.

1. Introduction ; 2. Cosmic Hermeneutics vs. Emergence: The Challenge of the Explanatory Gap. ; 3. Explanation, Emergence and Causality: Comments on Crane. ; 4. Is Nonreductive Physicalism Viable Within a Causal Powers Metaphysic? ; 5. Exclusion and Physicalism: Comments on O'Connor and Churchill. ; 6. Emergent Causation and Property Causation. ; 7. Emergence: Laws and Properties: Comments On Noordhof. ; 8. The Causal Autonomy of the Special Sciences. ; 9. Causal and Explanatory Autonomy: A Reply to Menzies and List. ; 10. Emergence and Downward Causation. ; 11. Identity With a Difference: Comments on Macdonald and Macdonald. ; 12. Can Any Sciences Be Special? ; 13. Can Any Sciences be Special? Comment on Papineau. ; 14. Emergence vs. Reduction in Chemistry. ; 15. An Emergentist's Perspective on the Problem of Free Will. ; 16. Strong Emergence and Freedom: Comment on A. Stephan. ; 17. Rationality, Reasoning and Group Agency.

Cynthia Macdonald is Professor of Philosophy at Queen's University Belfast and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Her research interests focus on the metaphysical foundations of mental causation and explanation and authoritative self-knowledge. Related recent publications include Varieties of Things: Foundations of Contemporary Metaphysics (Oxford: Blackwell 2005), 'Consciousness, Self-Consciousness, and Authoritative Self-Knowledge', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108, (2008), and 'Introspection', in A. Beckermann, B. McLaughlin, and S. Walter, eds., the Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008). She is currently completing a monograph with Graham Macdonald on Mental Causation and Explanation in the Special Sciences, funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Foundation. Graham Macdonald was educated in South Africa and England. He is presently Distinguished International Fellow in the Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen's University Belfast, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Recent publications include 'The Metaphysics of Mental Causation'(with Cynthia Macdonald), Journal of Philosophy 2006, and 'The Two Natures: Another Dogma?', in C. Macdonald and G. Macdonald, eds., McDowell and His Critics (Blackwell 2007).