Level theories are used to explain the relationship between different academic disciplines and the realities that they describe. Drawing on concepts of emergence and supervenience, level theories seek to counter the claim that all of reality can be explained as nothing but a collection of atoms. Various scholars in science and religion have argued that reality should be understood in terms of increasing levels of complexity, each level emergent from, but not reducible to, the levels below.

See also COMPLEXITY; EMERGENCE; HIERARCHY

GREGORY R. PETERSON