Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Reduction and emergence: a critique of Kim

  • Published:
Philosophical Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In a recent critique of the doctrine of emergentism championed by its classic advocates up to C. D. Broad, Jaegwon Kim (Philosophical Studies 63:31–47, 1999) challenges their view about its applicability to the sciences and proposes a new account of how the opposing notion of reduction should be understood. Kim is critical of the classic conception advanced by Nagel and uses his new account in his criticism of emergentism. I question his claims about the successful reduction achieved in the sciences and argue that his new account has not improved on Nagel’s and that the critique of emergentism he bases on it is question-begging in important respects.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Page references are to Kim (1999) unless otherwise indicated.

  2. He adds a parenthetical remark, “(another over-simplified stock example)”, appending a footnote referring to Sklar (1993). As we will see, however, Kim doesn’t take Sklar’s relevant remarks to heart, and goes on later to affirm the reducibility of gas temperature.

  3. ”An equation of state expresses the individual peculiarities of one system in contradistinction to another and must therefore be determined either by experiment or by molecular theory. A general theory like thermodynamics, based on general laws of nature, is incapable of expressing the behavior of one material as opposed to another. An equation of state therefore is not a theoretical deduction from thermodynamics but is usually an experimental addition to thermodynamics.” (Zemansky and Dittman 1981, p. 27).

  4. For the distinction between statistical mechanics and kinetic theory, see Zemansky and Dittman (1981, pp. 123–129).

  5. Trivial examples of mean molecular kinetic energy where there is only one, or very few, particles should be excluded (or counted as yet another counterexample).

  6. See Uffink (2004) for a discussion of Boltzmann’s arguments and the additional premises involved.

  7. Descartes’ notion of mechanical explanation seemed to be based on an intuitive notion of pushing, mediated by contact, on the strength of which he drew conclusions and put forward explanations that Newton criticised for not being captured by Descartes’ declared general principles. General laws formulated by Newton and others which could be shown to actually yield explanations of phenomena do not conform to the intuitive notion of causation as pushing. As Duhem notes, scientists did not take Leibniz’ notion of preestablished harmony as a viable alternative to Newton’s notion of gravitation, but did agree that reverting to action by contact provides no basis for the explanation of action at a distance because the action of one body on another remains as much in need of explanation when bodies are in contact as when they are not (Duhem 1893, p. 125).

  8. For example, by Richardson (1979, pp. 548–550).

  9. Equivalences do not circumvent this requirement, even if in the context of a theory they should satisfy conditions of definability of a term. If they really did contain new terms not part of the theory, they could not even be formulated.

  10. “If a physical event has a cause at t, it has a physical cause that occurs at t” (Kim 2005, p. 43).

  11. As usually understood, the characteristic feature of a complete microscopic description is the vast number of variables involved, whereas a complete macroscopic description involves just a few macroscopic variables. The state of the whole system is at issued in both cases.

  12. As Callen (1985, pp. 43–46) takes it upon himself to show.

  13. As Callen does in the passage cited in the preceding footnote.

  14. The feasibility of what are called causal loops is raised in analogous discussions of the possibility in special relativity of tachyons with transluminal velocities. Looking to the history of philosophy, it might be asked why Kim’s principle should be accepted rather than the scholastic claim that cause and effect are simultaneous since the cause cannot exert its influence when it no longer exists.

  15. Many relevant points have been made by Robin Hendry and myself in a response to Le Poidevin’s recent attempt (Le Poidevin 2005) to establish the ontological reduction of chemistry. See Hendry and Needham (2007).

  16. This may not be how those philosophers who think that all water is liquid use the term. But the term is used here as in elementary school physics and chemistry, where it is taught that water melts at 0°C and condenses at 100°C under normal pressure. For a discussion of the inadequacies of the stereotypic “characterisation” of water, see Needham (2008b).

  17. More generally, in a mixture of several substances, the behaviour of the mixture is definitely tied to the number of phases and the number of substances by the Gibbs phase rule (see Needham 2000, 2002).

  18. See Needham (2000, 2002, 2007) for a fuller discussion of these issues.

  19. In irreversible thermodynamics, sense is made of temperature gradients (and stationary states in which gains and losses are continually compensated) on the basis of an assumption that thermodynamic equilibrium obtains at a point is space at a time.

  20. See Needham (2008a). I fully sympathise with Francescotti’s questioning of the combination of non-reductionism and physicalism.

References

  • Atkins, P. W. (1994). The second law. New York: Scientific American Books, W. H. Freeman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beckermann, A. (2001). Physicalism and new-wave reductionism. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 61, 257–261.

    Google Scholar 

  • Callen, H. B. (1985). Thermodynamics and an introduction to thermostatistics. New York: John Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cartwright, N. (1983). How the laws of physics lie. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Causey, R. L. (1972). Attribute-identities in microreductions. The Journal of Philosophy, 69, 407–422. doi:10.2307/2024853.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crane, T. (2001) The significance of emergence. In B. Loewer, G. Gillett (Eds.), Physicalism and its discontents. Cambridge University Press.

  • Duhem, P. (1893). Une Nouvelle Théorie du Monde Inorganique. Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 33, 90–133.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duhem, P. (1894). Commentaire aux principes de la Thermodynamique. Troisième Partie: Les équations générales de la Thermodynamique. Journal de Mathématiques Pure et Appliquées, 10, 207–285.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duhem, P. (1954). The aim and structure of physical theories (P. Wiener, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  • Dupré, J. (1993). The disorder of things. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dupré, J. (2001). Human nature and the limits of science. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Francescotti, R. M. (1998). The non-reductionist’s troubles with supervenience. Philosophical Studies, 89, 105–124. doi:10.1023/A:1004273009713.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hendry, R. F. (1998). Models and approximations in quantum chemistry. In N. Shanks (Ed.), Idealization IX: Idealization in contemporary physics, Poznan studies in the philosophy of the sciences and the humanities (vol. 63, pp. 123–142), Rodopi.

  • Hendry, R. F. (2006). Is there downwards causation in chemistry? In D. Baird, E. Scerri & L. McIntyre (Eds.), Philosophy of chemistry: Synthesis of a new discipline (pp. 173–189). Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hendry, R. F., & Needham, P. (2007). Le Poidevin on the Reduction of Chemistry. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 58, 339–353. doi:10.1093/bjps/axm008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J. (1976). Events as property exemplifications. In M. Brand, D. Walton (Eds.), Action theory. Reidel Publishing Co.

  • Kim, J. (1989). The myth of nonreductive materialism. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 63, 31–47. doi:10.2307/3130081.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J. (1999). Making sense of emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, 3–36. doi:10.1023/A:1004563122154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J. (2005). Physicalism, or something near enough. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kripke, S. (1980). Naming and necessity. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Poidevin, Robin. (2005). Missing elements and missing premises: A combinatorial argument for the ontological reduction of chemistry. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 56, 117–134. doi:10.1093/phisci/axi106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lieb, E. H., & Yngvason, J. (1999). The physics and mathematics of the second law of thermodynamics. Physics Reports, 310, 1–96; Erratum, 314, 669.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marras, A. (2002). Kim on reduction. Erkenntnis, 57, 231–257. doi:10.1023/A:1020932406567.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marras, A. (2005). Consciousness and reduction. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 56, 335–361. doi:10.1093/bjps/axi120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maxwell, J. C. (1890). The collected scientific papers of James Clerk Maxwell. In W. D. Niven (Ed.), Vol. II. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

  • McLaughlin, B. P. (1992). The rise and fall of British emergentism. In A. Beckermann, H. Flohr & J. Kim (Eds.), Emergence or reduction? Essays on the prospects of nonreductive physicalism (pp. 49–93). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, E. (1961). The structure of science. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Needham, P. (2000). What is water? Analysis, 60, 13–21. doi:10.1111/1467-8284.00197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Needham, P. (2002). The discovery that water is H2O. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 16, 205–226. doi:10.1080/0269859022000013300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Needham, P. (2007). Macroscopic mixtures. The Journal of Philosophy, 104, 26–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Needham, P. (2008a). Is water a mixure? Bridging the distinction between physical and chemical properties. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 39, 66–77. doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2007.11.005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Needham, P. (2008b). A critique of the Kripke/Putnam conception of water. In K. Ruthenberg & J. van Brakel (Eds.), Stuff: The nature of chemical substances. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, R. C. (1979). Functionalism and reductionism. Philosophy of Science, 46, 533–558. doi:10.1086/288895.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sklar, L. (1993). Physics and chance: Philosophical issues in the foundations of statistical mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tisza, L. (1977). Generalized thermodynamics. Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uffink, J. (2004). Boltzmann’s work in statistical physics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/statphys-Boltzmann/. Accessed Dec 2007.

  • van der Vet, P. (1979). The debate between F. A. Paneth, G. von Hevesy and K. Fajans on the concept of chemical identity. Janus, 66, 285–303.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vemulapalli, G. K. (2006). Physics in the crucible of chemistry: Ontological boundaries and epistemological blueprints. In D. Baird, E. Scerri & L. McIntyre (Eds.), Philosophy of chemistry: Synthesis of a new discipline (pp. 191–204). Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woolley, R. G. (1978). Must a molecule have a shape? Journal of the American Chemical Society, 100, 1073–1078. doi:10.1021/ja00472a009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woolley, R. G. (1988). Must a molecule have a shape? New Scientist, 120(22 Oct), 53–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zemansky, M. W., & Dittman, R. H. (1981). Heat and thermodynamics: An intermediate textbook. London: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Fred Stoutland for very helpful discussions of earlier drafts, and Robin Hendry and Krishna Vemulapalli for many illuminating discussions of reduction. Research on which the paper is based was supported by the Swedish Research Council.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Stockholm, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Paul Needham

Authors
  1. Paul Needham
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul Needham.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Needham, P. Reduction and emergence: a critique of Kim. Philos Stud 146, 93–116 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9246-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9246-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation