Abstract
Emergent properties are Janus-faced. On one side, they contrast with microreducible or “resultant" ones. On the other side, they contrast with what we might call “macrofundamental" properties – properties of wholes that do not depend in any way on properties of their parts. Accordingly, many proposed accounts of emergence have a conjunctive form: emergent properties are nomologically but not metaphysically supervenient on their base, or they are fundamental but not independent from their base, for example. It seems to me that the extant accounts fail to capture a further important desideratum of an analysis of emergence: that it throws some light on why there are widespread doubts about the coherence of the notion, and gives us some insight into what the possibility of emergence turns on. My own proposal seeks to remedy this: I suggest, roughly, that emergent properties are partially but not fully grounded in their bases. If the orthodox view of partial grounding is right, nothing can satisfy that condition. This accounts for why the coherence of emergence is controversial. However, I shall argue that the orthodox account is wrong, and thus make room for the possibility of emergence.