Published in H. Coelho (Ed.) Progress in AI - IBERAMIA’98 Springer, LNAI 1484. 13-26 _______________________________________________________ Emergence and Cognition: Towards a Synthetic Paradigm in AI and Cognitive Science Cristiano Castelfranchi National Research Council - Institute of Psychology Division of "Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive and Interaction Modelling" cris@pscs2.irmkant.rm.cnr.it DRAFT/Preliminary version Abstract 0 In this paper I take the risk of predicting how the conflict between anti-symbolic Vs symbolic, emergentist Vs explicit approaches to cognition and action will be solved in the next decades. I do not believe in a ‘paradigmatic revolution’ and I argue in favour of a ‘synthesis’. I will illustrate how a synthetic paradigm can be built through the notion of different levels of reality description and of scientific theory, and through their interconnections thanks to bridge-theories , cross-layered theories , and layered ontologies. I will provide several examples of bridge-theories and layered ontologies with special attention to agents and multi-agent systems. In particular I will examine the theory of the mental counterparts of social objects illustrating the mental facet of norms and of commitment; the grounding of social power in the personal power; the cognitive bases of organisations. I will propose a layerd approach to the notions of agent, delegation, communication, conflict, as they apply to different levels of agenthood. I will sketch the problem of emergence amo ng intelligent agents by exploring the problem of unplanned cooperation and social functions. I will conclude with the importance of the new “social” computational paradigm in AI, and the emergent character of computation in Agent Based Computing. 1 Premise. At the frontier of a millennium: The challenge 0 This paper is a revised and quite extended version of my invited talk to IBERAMIA’98 - Lisbon October 1998. I would like to thank Helder Coelho for inviting me and for his comments, and the participants in the conference for interesting discussions.