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Emergent properties and the context objection to reduction

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Abstract

Reductionism is a central issue in the philosophy of biology. One common objection to reduction is that molecular explanation requires reference to higher-level properties, which I refer to as the context objection. I respond to this objection by arguing that a well-articulated notion of a mechanism and what I term mechanism extension enables one to accommodate the context-dependence of biological processes within a reductive explanation. The existence of emergent features in the context could be raised as an objection to the possibility of reduction via this strategy. I argue that this objection can be overcome by showing that there is no tenable argument for the existence of emergent properties that are not susceptible to a reductive explanation.

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Correspondence to Megan Delehanty.

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Delehanty, M. Emergent properties and the context objection to reduction. Biol Philos 20, 715–734 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-004-2437-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-004-2437-7

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