Reductionism
Edited by Ronald Endicott (North Carolina State University)
About this topic
Summary | Reductionism is a family of ontological, epistemological, methodological, linguistic, and explanatory views that apply to areas of science, mathematics, logic, and philosophy. Here the focus is upon reductionism in the sciences. The term “reductionism” suggests different concepts to different individuals, yet there are some common themes. Thus, reductionism in ontology typically involves a simplification in terms of what is more fundamental, ultimately the things in basic physics. Moreover, this simplification is typically achieved by means of unifying relations such as identity or composition or constitution, which contrast with the non-unifying attitudes of replacement or elimination if one thinks that the ontology of a special science does not reduce. Furthermore, the unifying relations might hold between partial or full domains of objects designated by the pertinent sciences, say, a partial reduction of special science properties but not the properties of phenomenal consciousness, or a partial reduction of particulars (for token reduction) but not all their properties (for type reduction). As well, the subsequent versions of partial and full reductionism may apply to various fields of science, such as the social sciences, or cognitive science, or biology. Finally, these many versions of reductionism contrast with nonreductive views regarding the objects or entities described in the sciences, such as ideas about emergence, supervenience, and realization. |
Key works | Traditional ideas from logical positivism set the stage for discussions of reduction in the philosophy of science (Nagel 1961; Sklar 1967). Then a post-positivist age of non-reductionism began, with important work on machine functionalism in the philosophy of mind by Hilary Putnam (Putnam 1975) and the autonomy of special sciences by Jerry Fodor (Fodor 1974). Since that time there has been a natural ebb and flow between opposing views on reductionism. For example, there are debates over how best to understand the reduction of a scientific theory, including discussion of the new wave Churchland-Hooker model (see Bickle 1998; cf. Endicott 1998), and functional-role-occupant reduction (Kim 1998; cf. Marras 2002). As well, there is much interest in the apparent reductively resistant aspects of consciousness (Chalmers 1996; Alter & Walter 2006). Also, there is much interest in mechanistic explanations that emphasize their multiple-level integrity as opposed to a pure physical-level explanation (Machamer et al 2000; Craver 2007). Finally, there are good surveys on the choice between reduction and alternatives such as emergence (Beckermann et al 1992; van Gulick 2001) as well as different perspectives on the reductive type identity theory (Gozzano & Hill 2012). |
Introductions | Van Riel, R., and Van Gulick, R. (2019). “Scientific Reduction.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- Nonreductive Materialism (408)
- Multiple Realizability (335)
- Interlevel Relations in Chemistry (39)
- Reduction in Biology (135 | 89)
- Reduction in Ecology (17)
- Reduction in Genetics (21)
- Reduction in Cognitive Science (395)
- Reduction in Social Science (89)
- Reduction, Misc (30)
- Reductive Explanation (51)
- Theory Reduction (163)
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General Editors:
David Bourget (Western Ontario) David Chalmers (ANU, NYU) Area Editors: David Bourget Gwen Bradford Berit Brogaard Margaret Cameron David Chalmers James Chase Rafael De Clercq Ezio Di Nucci Barry Hallen Hans Halvorson Jonathan Ichikawa Michelle Kosch Øystein Linnebo JeeLoo Liu Paul Livingston Brandon Look Manolo Martínez Matthew McGrath Michiru Nagatsu Susana Nuccetelli Giuseppe Primiero Jack Alan Reynolds Darrell P. Rowbottom Aleksandra Samonek Constantine Sandis Howard Sankey Jonathan Schaffer Thomas Senor Robin Smith Daniel Star Jussi Suikkanen Lynne Tirrell Aness Kim Webster Other editors Contact us Learn more about PhilPapers |