Alexander, Samuel

(1859-1938) philosopher professor at Manchester; Realist metaphysics ; wrote Space, Time, and Deity; holds a theory of the mind called emergentism ; mind evolves
from matter and life; evolution produces genuine novelties not reducible to the elements of lower levels; each emergent has 1. a structure differing from the structure of its constituents and 2. a function peculiar to its level; the tendency toward emergence is identified as a nisus (striving) (see Bergson 's élan vital); there is a continuous interaction and interdependence of all the levels, as,
e.g., of brain (life) and mind (interactionism ).