Synthese 151 (3):445-475 (2006)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
Methodological reductionists practice ‘wannabe reductionism’. They claim that one should pursue reductionism, but never propose how. I integrate two strains in prior work to do so. Three kinds of activities are pursued as “reductionist”. “Successional reduction” and inter-level mechanistic explanation are legitimate and powerful strategies. Eliminativism is generally ill-conceived. Specific problem-solving heuristics for constructing inter-level mechanistic explanations show why and when they can provide powerful and fruitful tools and insights, but sometimes lead to erroneous results. I show how traditional metaphysical approaches fail to engage how science is done. The methods used do so, and support a pragmatic and non-eliminativist realism.
|
Keywords | Aggregativity Biases Eliminativism Heuristics Identification Inter-level explanation Localization Mechanism Methodological reductionism Problem-solving Wannabe reductionism |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
ISBN(s) | |
DOI | 10.1007/s11229-006-9017-0 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas Samuel Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
View all 46 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Transactive Memory Systems: A Mechanistic Analysis of Emergent Group Memory.Georg Theiner - 2013 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4 (1):65-89.
Getting Over Atomism: Functional Decomposition in Complex Neural Systems.Daniel C. Burnston - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (3):743-772.
For Emergence: Refining Archer's Account of Social Structure.Dave Elder-Vass - 2007 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 37 (1):25–44.
When Integration Fails: Prokaryote Phylogeny and the Tree of Life.Maureen A. O’Malley - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4a):551-562.
Cancer and the Goals of Integration.Anya Plutynski - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (4):466-476.
View all 43 citations / Add more citations
Similar books and articles
Reductionism as a Research Directive.Fabian Lausen - 2014 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (2):263-279.
New Wave Psychophysical Reductionism and the Methodological Caveats.John Bickle - 1996 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (1):57-78.
Grene on Mechanism and Reductionism: More Than Just a Side Issue.Robert N. Brandon - 1984 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984:345 - 353.
Is the Brain a Memory Box?Anne Jaap Jacobson - 2005 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 4 (3):271-278.
Reductionism in Medicine: Social Aspects of Health.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 2002 - In Marc Van Regenmortel & David Hull (eds.), Promises and Limits of Reductionism in the Biomedical Sciences. J. Wiley and Sons. pp. 67-82.
Seventeenth-Century Mechanism: An Alternative Framework for Reductionism.Kari L. Theurer - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):907-918.
Reductionism and Cultural Being: A Philosophical Critique of Sociobiological Reductionism and Physicalist Scientific Unificationism.Joseph Wayne Smith - 1984 - Kluwer Academic Publishers.
The Limits of Reductionism in the Life Sciences.Marie I. Kaiser - 2011 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 33 (4):453-476.
Reductionism with a Human Face.Timothy Andrew Preston - 2002 - Dissertation, University of South Carolina
Reductionism: Analysis and the Fullness of Reality.Richard H. Jones - 2000 - Bucknell University Press.
Reductionism About Persons; and What Matters.Timothy Chappell - 1998 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 98 (1):41-58.
Reductionism, Brain Imaging, and Social Identity Commentary on “Biological Indeterminacy”.Ann Pirruccello - 2012 - Science and Engineering Ethics 18 (3):453-456.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2009-01-28
Total views
145 ( #80,700 of 2,506,442 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #416,997 of 2,506,442 )
2009-01-28
Total views
145 ( #80,700 of 2,506,442 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #416,997 of 2,506,442 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads