“Addressed to current controversy concerning the origin and explanation of biological life and human culture, Hungarian philosopher Daniel Paksi aims to establish a coherent, scientifically grounded concept of evolutionary emergence as a more viable alternative to both reductionist materialism(s) and ontological dualism(s), providing a sounder conceptual foundation for cultural meaning. Paksi's argument draws on philosopher-scientist Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge and Samuel Alexander's Space, Time, and Deity. Developed in dialogue with previous efforts toward this goal, Paksi articulates a hopeful intellectual vision for humankind in the twenty-first century.”

—Dale Cannon, Western Oregon University



“This is a thorough examination of Neo-Darwinism’s denial of the reality and significance of emergence, using and developing Michael Polanyi’s and other philosophies plus more empirical detail, followed by an account of the meaning and reality of the emergence of genuinely new orders of existence and how they can be related by the boundary conditions of a lower level being determined by the next higher. Perhaps how emergence is itself possible is more open than Paski allows.”

—R.T. Allen, author, The Necessity of God