Talk:Reductionism
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Hi Lee, since you ask for feedback--where does the list of kinds of reductionism comes from? Philosophers refer to lots of different kinds of reductionism, especially in relation to the mental phenomena, value, biological phenomena, social phenomena, etc., but there isn't any such generally agreed upon list of "kinds of reductionism" that I am aware of. (That doesn't mean that such a list doesn't exist, but I'm skeptical.) It would be more helpful, instead, to elaborate some particular theory that is said to be an example of reductionism, or to elaborate some philosopher's general characterization of reductionism. (Philosophers obviously don't agree about what reductionism is with regard to any domain--my impression is that a lot of the debate over the merits of reductionism turns precisely on the question of what it is.) In particular, I don't immediately get the difference between methodological, scientific, and theoretical reductionism. It would help a lot if this terminology were attributed to actual philosophers. --Larry Sanger
I see at least two kinds of reductionism in science. One is reductionism as a method of research (maybe a more apt/less loaded term would be "analysis"?). The success of the method cannot be denied and the fact that reductionism works is a nontrivial statement about the world. The other is the result of elevating the research method to a worldview. Does a discussion of these ideas belong in this article, or somewhere else. Also, I don't think I can provide a lot of references for this. -- Miguel
Well, I'd say that reductionism is clearly a topic in philosophy. It's possibly also (I guess I don't know) a topic of philosophical reflection by scientists (in a tradition of theorizing separate from philosophical reflection about science by philosophers). If scientists do use the term "reductionism" in ways that are culturally important (as opposed to just occasionally making off-the-cuff remarks that reflect what they read when they were reading some philosophy of science written by philosophers), then the ideal encyclopedia article about reductionism would include information about how scientists use the term. (Whether that discussion belongs on scientific reductionism I don't know; that depends on whether scientists call the reductionism they champion "scientific reductionism," which I would doubt. Maybe the discussion would be better placed on reductionism in science or even scientists' views on reductionism. The reductionism article certainly should include a lot of information about how philosophers use the term.
As to whether you should put two name and describe two different senses of "reductionism" in the article, I would say that depends entirely upon whether you're making up words to describe phenomena (about the scientific community) you observe, or instead reporting how others have described such phenomena. If you're making up words, then you're essentially doing original research which (I would say) doesn't have a place in an encyclopedia. If you're reporting some distinction that you've read in textbooks, for example, that would be another matter entirely. In such a case, the ideal article would attribute the distinction to whatever seminal sources are responsible for making it. --Larry Sanger
I have a question for Lee, Larry, and others who have been working on this article. My question concerns the relationshionship between reductionism and explanation, rathe than types of reductionisms (although I might suggest that one type of reductionism may have more than one function). In short, I question whether the purpose of reduction is to "explain" things. I guess this really hinges on how you define explain, so perhaps I am simply asking that the contributers to this article explain what they mean by "explain."
In A Brief History of time Stephen Hawking defines a theory as a model of the universe or some part of the universe, and a set of rules that allow us to relate quantities in the model to our observations of the real world. Now, I imagine there are other good and maybe even more popular definitions of theory, but I think Hawking is well-enough known and admired that this definition is acceptable. In any event, I am introducing it not as an example of a definition of a theory, but as a case of reductionism for in describing theories as models, Hawking seems to be taking a generally reductionbism view.
But, my question is, do such reductions (as those theories of physics that he describes) really "explain" things? I do not think they do, at least not in the common sense of a prior action that determines a consequent action. On the contrary, it seems to me that all such models do is describe how certain kinds of events may determine other kinds of events. It seems to me that the real stregnth of such theories is not that they explain, but that they reveal that different events can all be described in the same language, i.e. that the orbit of the moon and an apple falling off a tree obey the same law of gravity. But this does not mee that the apple falls "because" of the theory of gravity; the theory of gravity merely describes the relationships of bodies with mass that allow us to predict future events. Is this realy "explanation?"
If it is "explanation," all I can say is, it is not explanation in the sense that I think most English speakers mean, and so the article should be clear about the meaning. SR
If "reductionism" generally is to be defined in terms of explanation, it can't be just causal explanation; it would also have to be explanation of meaning, or semantic explanation.
A more complete article on the subject would certainly make a big to do about how reduction might or might not be considered to be a variety of explanation. Often, reduction is portrayed as elimination; so, for example, if I try to reduce mental events to brain events, some people naturally react not as if I had tried to explain what mental events are (an ontological explanation) or how they occur (causal explanation), but tried to eliminate the need to talk about mental events at all, in favor of talk about brain events. --Larry Sanger
I'm removing the italicized portion of the following:
- Scientific reductionism has been used to describe all of the above ideas as they relate to science, but is most often used to describe the idea that all phenomena can be reduced to scientific explanations; that is, that all things are explainable.
This seems problematic, because it implies that there is no such thing as a "non-scientific explanation". Is that really what is meant?
Also, is it part of "scientific reductionism" to deny the reality of that which cannot be reduced to science? If so, maybe this should be clarified here. --Ryguasu
I'm curious: Daniel Dennett talks about "greedy reductionism". Does anyone talk about "greedy holism"? If I were to define that term, it would mean something along the lines of "understanding the whole has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding its parts." Although it would probably be hard to find someone who would actually espouse such an extreme position, I think one could certainly accuse some people (perhaps even mainstream sociology) of having strong tendencies in that direction. --Ryguasu 16:45 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
Reply to Ryguasu (above)
Some people use the word emergence when they make claims such as: "understanding the whole has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding its parts," particularly in a context such as, "you cannot explain consciousness by reductionism because consciousness is emergent."
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a good summary of use of the term "emergent" within philosophy.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/
I am surprised that there is no entry yet for holism. I have always had a problem with the term "holism" because it seems to get hijacked by people who have an anti-reductionism agenda.
For example:
"Holism, stands in stark opposition to the method of reductionism, which holds that analysis, dissection, and strict definition are the tools for understanding reality. Holism asserts that phenomena can never be fully understood in isolation; it asserts that reductionism can only give us a partial view of anything it dissects."
http://www.neat.tas.edu.au/HENT/glossary.htm
I usually like to tell people that I take a holistic approach to my reductionism. I see nothing paradoxical about this. We reduce complex systems to their componenents then we must construct a holistic view of how the components interact to produce the whole system. I think holism and reductionism should go hand-in-hand not be viewed as being in "stark opposition". I have similar problems with the term "emergent" which I have discussed here:
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8870/books/AScott2.html
JWSchmidt 04:08 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)
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