Abstract

This study of inter-theoretic reduction and reductionism in biology explores problems logical empiricist approaches face in giving a meaning analysis of reduction, and three real issues in biology involving reductionism: teleology and evolution, levels of organization, and the reduction of Mendelian to molecular genetics. ;It is denied that there is an answer to the logical empiricist question, "What single correct reduction concept is universally and realistically applicable to all science?" The question is unsatisfactory. First, it presupposes that philosophy of science concepts like 'reduction' have meaning in isolation, the same meaning across all variation in their associated philosophical, scientific, formal, and ordinary language contexts. Second, it hopes that reduction so analyzed will have significant application to real science. But the presupposition is undercut by the failure of the analytic/synthetic distinction and the hope is not borne out by scrutiny of reductionism in biology. ;A radical reversal of perspective is in order. Rather than expecting science to conform to philosophy of science concepts concocted in a vacuum of abstraction from context, we should ask, "For a given context, what concept of reduction is appropriate for that context?" This alternative approach is argued for by exposing the weakness inherent in the strategy of meaning analysis logical empiricists use, and by the study of the cited real issues in biology