Let T be a simple L-theory and let \ be a reduct of T to a sublanguage \ of L. For variables x, we call an \-invariant set \\) in \ a universal transducer if for every formula \\in L^-\) and every a, $$\begin{aligned} \phi ^-\ L^-\text{-forks } \text{ over }\ \emptyset \ \text{ iff } \Gamma \wedge \phi ^-\ L\text{-forks } \text{ over }\ \emptyset. \end{aligned}$$We show that there is a greatest universal transducer \ and it is type-definable. (...) In particular, the forking topology on \\) refines the forking topology on \\) for all y. Moreover, we describe the set of universal transducers in terms of certain topology on the Stone space and show that \ is the unique universal transducer that is \-type-definable with parameters. If \ is a theory with the wnfcp and T is the theory of its lovely pairs of models we show that \\) and give a more precise description of the set of universal transducers for the special case where \ has the nfcp. (shrink)

We show that every reduct of a stable. CM-trivial theory of finite U-rank is CM-trivial.

Reduction and reductionism have been central philosophical topics in analytic philosophy of science for more than six decades. Together they encompass a diversity of issues from metaphysics and epistemology. This article provides an introduction to the topic that illuminates how contemporary epistemological discussions took their shape historically and limns the contours of concrete cases of reduction in specific natural sciences. The unity of science and the impulse to accomplish compositional reduction in accord with a layer-cake vision of the sciences, the (...) seminal contributions of Ernest Nagel on theory reduction and how they strongly conditioned subsequent philosophical discussions, and the detailed issues pertaining to different accounts of reduction that arise in both physical and biological science (e.g., limit-case and part-whole reduction in physics, the difference-making principle in genetics, and mechanisms in molecular biology) are explored. The conclusion argues that the epistemological heterogeneity and patchwork organization of the natural sciences encourages a pluralist stance about reduction. (shrink)

Ce travail sur la réduction segmentale (c.-à-d. la suppression ou réduction temporelle de segments) en français spontané nous a permis de proposer une méthode de recherche pour les études en linguistique, ainsi que d’apporter des connaissances sur la propension à la réduction des segments à l’oral. Cette méthode, appelée méthode ascendante, nous permet de travailler sans hypothèse spécifique sur la réduction. Les résultats suggèrent que les liquides, les glides et la fricative voisée /v/ sont plus facilement réduites que les autres (...) consonnes et que les voyelles nasales résistent mieux à la réduction que les voyelles orales. Parmi les voyelles orales, les voyelles orales arrondies ont tendance à être plus souvent réduites que les autres voyelles orales. (shrink)

Of the various debates surrounding harm reduction, a conceptual tension that perhaps has the most relevance for the provision of services is that of harm reduction as a technical solution versus a contextualized social practice. The aim of this paper was to examine this conceptual tension. First, the two perspectives will be presented through the use of examples. Second, philosophical drivers that serve to underpin and justify each perspective will be explicated at the level of the knowledge that we privilege; (...) the ideologies that we subscribe to; and the interests that we stand to serve. In this paper, I argue that the existing tension between technical and social approaches to harm reduction is embedded within discord pertaining to ways of knowing, paradigms of inquiry, prevailing ideologies, and notions of harm and risk. Building on these sources of tension, I suggest a means of philosophical reconciliation between the two approaches and ways forward, namely through acknowledging multiple sources of knowledge, through embracing paradigmatic incommensurability, through considering alternative conceptions of people who use drugs as political subjects, through involving service providers and end‐users in shared decision‐making, and lastly through reaffirming people who use drugs as the intended beneficiaries of services. (shrink)

The work of the Latvian phenomenologist Theodor Celms provides an interesting attempt to reinterpret Husserl’s phenomenological reduction in terms of Natorp’s subjectivation. This paper summarizes in broad outline some salient features of Celms’ theory of subjectivation and discusses some of its similarities and differences with Husserl’s and Natorp’s views. I focus on two more central points. First, Celms proposes to interpret Husserlian reduction as radicalizing or generalizing an operation of thought that is pervasive throughout all forms of cognition. Secondly, he (...) makes a distinction between epistemological and ontological subjectivation that leads him to adopt a critical stance toward both Husserl’s transcendental idealism and Natorp’s general psychology. (shrink)

The reductive strategies, such as the deductive-nomological (DN) model of explanation, or the Nagel–Schaffner reduction, have been perceived negatively ever since their first applications in historical inquiry. However, the role of the analysis of inter-theory relations, such as the preservation of success and retrospective rationality, has hardly ever received much attention from historians of science. In this paper, I am exploring the applicability of the analysis of inter-theory relations for the rational reconstruction of the development of science. I demonstrate that (...) the historiography of Anneliese Maier is a good example of a few reductive strategies at play in historical inquiry that do not submit to the same criticism that the synchronic reductive analysis of theories is submitted to. (shrink)

Let $\Gamma$ be the random bipartite graph, a countable graph with two infinite sides, edges randomly distributed between the sides, but no edges within a side. In this paper, we investigate the reducts of $\Gamma$ that preserve sides. We classify the closed permutation subgroups containing the group $\operatorname {Aut}(\Gamma)^{\ast}$ , where $\operatorname {Aut}(\Gamma)^{\ast}$ is the group of all isomorphisms and anti-isomorphisms of $\Gamma$ preserving the two sides. Our results rely on a combinatorial theorem of Nešetřil and Rödl and a strong (...) finite submodel property for $\Gamma$. (shrink)

This is a survey article on reductive views of shared intention.

Reduction was once a central topic in philosophy of science. I claim that it remains important, especially when applied to problems and problem-solutions rather than only to large theory-complexes. Without attempting a comprehensive classification, I discuss various kinds of problem reductions and similar relations, illustrating them, inter alia, in terms of the blackbody problem and early quantization problems. Kuhn's early work is suggestive here both for structuralist theory of science and for the line I prefer to take. My central claims (...) in the paper are (1) that problem reduction is important in its own right and does not "reduce" to theory reduction and (2) that problem reduction is generally more important than theory reduction to methodology as the "control theory" of inquiry. (shrink)

Philosophers of neuroscience have traditionally described interfield integration using reduction models. Such models describe formal inferential relations between theories at different levels. I argue against reduction and for a mechanistic model of interfield integration. According to the mechanistic model, different fields integrate their research by adding constraints on a multilevel description of a mechanism. Mechanistic integration may occur at a given level or in the effort to build a theory that oscillates among several levels. I develop this alternative model using (...) a putative exemplar of reduction in contemporary neuroscience: the relationship between the psychological phenomena of learning and memory and the electrophysiological phenomenon known as Long-Term Potentiation. A new look at this historical episode reveals the relative virtues of the mechanistic model over reduction as an account of interfield integration. (shrink)

This article considers the following question: What is the relationship between supervenience and reduction? I investigate this formally: first, by introducing a recent argument by Christian List to the effect that one can have supervenience without reduction; then, by considering how the notion of Nagelian reduction can be related to the formal apparatus of definability and translation theory; then, by showing how, in the context of propositional theories, topological constraints on supervenience serve to enforce reducibility; and, finally, by showing how (...) constraints derived from the theory of ultraproducts can enforce reducibility in the context of first-order theories. (shrink)

This chapter discusses several kinds of reduction that are often found in the biomedical sciences, in contrast to reduction in fields such as physics. This includes reduction as a methodological assumption for how to investigate phenomena like complex diseases, and reduction as a conceptual tool for relating distinct models of the same phenomenon. The case of Parkinson’s disease illustrates a wide variety of ways in which reductionism is an important tool in medicine.

The claim that reduction entails grounding (but not vice versa) – called ‘the grounding-reduction link’ – is potentially very important but not clearly correct. After working through a fruitful debate between Gideon Rosen (who maintains the link) and Paul Audi (who maintains its impossibility), I distinguish between what I call ‘strict’ and ‘broad’ reduction. Strict reduction is incompatible with grounding, but broad reduction is not. Thus the link is possible, at least for broad reduction. However, neither strict nor broad reduction (...) entails grounding. Ultimately, there may be a link between grounding and some highly qualified form of reduction. However, the philosophical traction that one might hope to gain for grounding via such a link is considerably diminished if not outright lost. (shrink)

I argue that an adequate account of non-reductive realization must guarantee satisfaction of a certain condition on the token causal powers associated with (instances of) realized and realizing entities---namely, what I call the 'Subset Condition on Causal Powers' (first introduced in Wilson 1999). In terms of states, the condition requires that the token powers had by a realized state on a given occasion be a proper subset of the token powers had by the state that realizes it on that occasion. (...) Accounts of non-reductive realization conforming to this condition are implementing what I call 'the powers-based subset strategy'. I focus on the crucial case involving mental and brain states; the results may be generalized, as appropriate. I first situate and motivate the strategy by attention to the problem of mental causation; I make the case, in schematic terms, that implementation of the strategy makes room (contra Kim 1989, 1993, 1998, and elsewhere) for mental states to be ontologically and causally autonomous from their realizing physical states, without inducing problematic causal overdetermination, and compatible with both Physicalism and Non-reduction; and I show that several contemporary accounts of non-reductive realization (in terms of functional realization, parthood, and the determinable/determinate relation) are plausibly seen as implementing the strategy. As I also show, implementation of the powers-based strategy does not require endorsement of any particular accounts of either properties or causation---indeed, a categoricalist contingentist Humean can implement the strategy. The schematic location of the strategy in the space of available responses to the problem of mental (more generally, higher-level) causation, as well as the fact that the schema may be metaphysically instantiated, strongly suggests that the strategy is, appropriately generalized and instantiated, sufficient and moreover necessary for non-reductive realization. I go on to defend the sufficiency and necessity claims against a variety of objections, considering, along the way, how the powers-based subset strategy fares against competing accounts of purportedly non-reductive realization in terms of supervenience, token identity, and constitution. (shrink)

Psychoneural reduction has been debated extensively in the philosophy of neuroscience. In this article I will evaluate metascientific approaches that claim direct molecular and cellular explanations of cognitive functions. I will initially consider the issues involved in linking cellular properties to behaviour from the general perspective of neural circuits. These circuits that integrate the molecular and cellular components underlying cognition and behaviour, making consideration of circuit properties relevant to reductionist debates. I will then apply this general perspective to specific systems (...) where psychoneural reduction has been claimed, namely hippocampal long-term potentiation and the Aplysia gill-withdrawal reflex. (shrink)

The unprecedented prowess of measurement techniques provides a detailed, multi‐scale look into the depths of living systems. Understanding these avalanches of high‐dimensional data—by distilling underlying principles and mechanisms—necessitates dimensional reduction. We propose that living systems achieve exquisite dimensional reduction, originating from their capacity to learn, through evolution and phenotypic plasticity, the relevant aspects of a non‐random, smooth physical reality. We explain how geometric insights by mathematicians allow one to identify these genuine hallmarks of life and distinguish them from universal properties (...) of generic data sets. We illustrate these principles in a concrete example of protein evolution, suggesting a simple general recipe that can be applied to understand other biological systems. (shrink)

Ethicists struggle to take reductive views seriously. They also have trouble conceiving of some supervenience failures. Understanding why provides further evidence for a kind of hybrid view of normative concept use.

A reduct of a first-order structure is another structure on the same set with perhaps fewer definable predicates. We consider reducts of the complex field which are proper but nontrivial in a sense to be made precise in the paper. Our main result lists seven kinds of reducts. The list is complete in the sense that every reduct is a finite cover of one of these. We also investigate when two items on our list can be the same, (...) in a couple of natural senses. (shrink)

Reduction and reductionism have been central philosophical topics in analytic philosophy of science for more than six decades. Together they encompass a diversity of issues from metaphysics and epistemology. This article provides an introduction to the topic that illuminates how contemporary epistemological discussions took their shape historically and limns the contours of concrete cases of reduction in specific natural sciences. The unity of science and the impulse to accomplish compositional reduction in accord with a layer-cake vision of the sciences, the (...) seminal contributions of Ernest Nagel on theory reduction and how they strongly conditioned subsequent philosophical discussions, and the detailed issues pertaining to different accounts of reduction that arise in both physical and biological science (e.g., limit-case and part-whole reduction in physics, the difference-making principle in genetics, and mechanisms in molecular biology) are explored. The conclusion argues that the epistemological heterogeneity and patchwork organization of the natural sciences encourages a pluralist stance about reduction. (shrink)

Poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) present a recipient country’s program of intent for the utilization of World Bank loans and grants to alleviate debt under the bank’s programs of action for poverty reduction in highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs). This article argues that structural transformation is a prerequisite for poverty reduction in Zambia. However, the Zambian PRSP is largely informed by mainstream thinking on poverty and livelihoods. It champions a neoliberal program constructed on the sanctity of the market and seeks (...) to maintain the very structural processes that engender poverty. Because it fails to break, conceptually and methodologically, from past program failures, the PRSP is likely to be just the latest installment in the ever-changing fashionable semantics of the “development community.” The article examines the conceptual and methodological failures of the Zambian PRSP particularly with respect to the measurement of poverty and the concept of participation. (shrink)

Some claim that Non- reductive Physicalism is an unstable position, on grounds that NRP either collapses into reductive physicalism, or expands into emergentism of a robust or ‘strong’ variety. I argue that this claim is unfounded, by attention to the notion of a degree of freedom—roughly, an independent parameter needed to characterize an entity as being in a state functionally relevant to its law-governed properties and behavior. I start by distinguishing three relations that may hold between the degrees of freedom (...) needed to characterize certain special science entities, and those needed to characterize their composing physical entities; these correspond to what I call ‘reductions’, ‘restrictions’, and ‘eliminations’ in degrees of freedom. I then argue that eliminations in degrees of freedom, in particular—when strictly fewer degrees of freedom are required to characterize certain special science entities than are required to characterize their composing physical entities—provide a basis for making sense of how certain special science entities can be both physically acceptable and ontologically irreducible to physical entities. (shrink)

The third author gave a natural deduction style proof system called the \-calculus for implicational fragment of classical logic in. In -calculus, 2015, Post-proceedings of the RIMS Workshop “Proof Theory, Computability Theory and Related Issues”, to appear), the fourth author gave a natural subsystem “intuitionistic \-calculus” of the \-calculus, and showed the system corresponds to intuitionistic logic. The proof is given with tree sequent calculus, but is complicated. In this paper, we introduce some reduction rules for the \-calculus, and give (...) a simple and purely syntactical proof to the theorem by use of the reduction. In addition, we show that we can give a computation model with rich expressive power with our system. (shrink)

We try to find a possible origin of the holographic principle in the Lorentz-covariant Yang’s quantized space-time algebra (YSTA). YSTA, which is intrinsically equipped with short- and long-scale parameters, λ and R, gives a finite number of spatial degrees of freedom for any bounded spatial region, providing a basis for divergence-free quantum field theory. Furthermore, it gives a definite kinematical reduction of spatial degrees of freedom, compared with the ordinary lattice space. On account of the latter fact, we find a (...) certain kind of kinematical holographic relation in YSTA, which may be regarded as a primordial form of the holographic principle suggested so far in the framework of the present quantum theory that appears now in the contraction limit of YSTA, λ→0 and R→∞. (shrink)

This article engages with the philosophical reflections of the French historian of science Hélène Metzger (1886–1944) in order to develop a vocabulary for understanding the rise of non-reductive Continental naturalism in the contemporary humanities. The bibliography of current naturalist approaches in the arts and the human sciences is still in the making, but it is altogether clear that the trend is not scientist or historicist or relativist. This epistemological diagnosis refers us to Metzger, who found herself surrounded with the logical (...) positivism of the Wiener Kreis, on the one hand, and the historicism of her French colleagues, on the other, as well as with the infiltration of the history of science by a chronological empiricism. In this article I will take the most recent book of Vicki Kirby – Quantum Anthropologies: Life at Large from 2011 – as an exemplary case of non-reductive Continental naturalist scholarship in the humanities today and by reading it through the concepts of Metzger, I will demonstrate how this type of research leads to refreshing insights in what constitutes positive humanities knowledge and what is the role of the a priori in the field. (shrink)

ObjectiveA rapid review was conducted to identify the most effective stress reduction techniques for health care providers dealing with patients infected with severe coronavirus.MethodsPubMed, PsychInfo, Embase, and CINAHL databases were searched to identify relevant studies. Searches were restricted by date. All empirical quantitative and qualitative studies in which relaxation techniques of various types implemented on health care providers caring for patients during severe coronavirus pandemics and articles that consider the implementation of mental health care services considered to be pertinent, such (...) as commentaries, were included.ResultsFourteen studies met the selection criteria, most of which were recommendations. Only one study described a digital intervention, and user satisfaction was measured. In the recommendations, both organizational and individual self-care interventions were suggested.ConclusionsFurther research is necessary to establish tailor-made effective stress reduction interventions for this population, during these challenging and particular times. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of emergence are incompatible with reduction. Most scientists regard a system property as emergent relative to properties of the system's parts if it depends upon their mode of organization--a view consistent with reduction. Emergence can be analyzed as a failure of aggregativity--a state in which "the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts." Aggregativity requires four conditions, giving tools for analyzing modes of organization. Differently met for different decompositions of the system, and in different (...) degrees, these conditions provide powerful evaluation criteria for choosing decompositions, and heuristics for detecting biases of vulgar reductionisms. This analysis of emergence is compatible with reduction. (shrink)

Despite downsides, it must, on balance, be good to reduce prejudice. Despite upsides, collective action can also have destructive outcomes. Improving intergroup relations requires multiple levels of analysis involving a broader approach to prejudice reduction, awareness of potential conflict escalation, development of intergroup understanding, and promotion of a wider human rights perspective.

Though most contemporary philosophers and scientists accept a physicalist view of mind, the recent surge of interest in the problem of consciousness has put the mind /body problem back into play. The physicalists' lack of success in dispelling the air of residual mystery that surrounds the question of how consciousness might be physically explained has led to a proliferation of options. Some offer alternative formulations of physicalism, but others forgo physicalism in favour of views that are more dualistic or that (...) bring in mentalistic features at the ground- floor level of reality as in pan-proto-psychism. My aim here is to give an overview of the recent philosophic discussion to serve as a map in locating issues and options. I will not offer a comprehensive survey of the debate or mark every important variant to be found in the recent literature. I will mark the principal features of the philosophic landscape that one might use as general orientation points in navigating the terrain. I will focus in particular on three central and interrelated ideas: those of emergence, reduction, and nonreductive physicalism. The third of these, which has emerged as more or less the majority view among current philosophers of mind, combines a pluralist view about the diversity of what needs to be explained by science with an underlying metaphysical commitment to the physical as the ultimate basis of all that is real. The view has been challenged from both left and right, on one side from dualists and on the other from hard core reductive materialists. Despite their differences, those critics agree in finding nonreductive physicalism an unacceptable and perhaps even incoherent position. They agree as well in treating reducibility as the essential criterion for physicality; they differ only about whether the criterion can be met. Reductive physicalists argue that it can, and dualists deny it. (shrink)

On considère souvent Lévinas comme philosophe de l’Autre. Mais on sait également que son premier concept emblématique est l’il y a. Comment peut-on expliquer l’absence de l’Autre dans la première pensée de Levinas? Notre étude propose de mettre en relation celle-ci et sa critique de la philosophie moderne y inclut la phénoménologie.Face à la faille virtuelle de la phénoménologie, le jeune Lévinas était déjà conscient de la limite de la philosophie moderne supposant toujours un sujet pensant inébranlable. Les thématiques que (...) le jeune Levinas a choisi d’analyser comme nausée, honte, etc étaient en effet les vécus ignorés par la tradition philosophique de la conscience lucide. En réduisant le sujet pensant à l’état d’il y a, Lévinas tente de montrer la nécessité de l’Autre. La réduction du sujet pensant par le concept d’il y a est la première étape pour arriver à cette nécessité.Se suele considerar a Lévinas como el filósofo del “Otro”. Pero es sabido igualmente que su primer concepto emblemático es el “hay”. ¿Cómo se puede explicar la ausencia del “Otro” en la primera etapa del pensamiento de Levinas? Nuestro estudio pro-pone ponerlo en relación con su crítica de la filosofía moderna incluyendo la fenomenología.Frente al virtual fallo de la fenomenología, el joven Levinas era ya consciente del límite de la filosofía moderna, que suponía siempre un sujeto pensante inquebrantable. Las temáticas que el joven Levinas decide analizar, como la náusea, la vergüenza, etc., constituían en efec-to vivencias ignoradas por la tradición filosófica de la conciencia lúcida. Al reducir el sujeto pensante al estado de “hay”, Lévinas intenta mostrar la necesidad del “Otro”. La reducción del sujeto pensante por el concepto de “hay” es la primera etapa para llegar a esta necesidad. (shrink)

Decision trees learning is one of the most practical classification methods in machine learning, which is used for approximating discrete-valued target functions. However, they may overfit the training data, which limits their ability to generalize to unseen instances. In this study, we investigated the use of instance reduction techniques to smooth the decision boundaries before training the decision trees. Noise filters such as ENN, RENN, and ALLKNN remove noisy instances while DROP3 and DROP5 may remove genuine instances. Extensive empirical experiments (...) were conducted on 13 benchmark datasets from UCI machine learning repository with and without intentionally introduced noise. Empirical results show that eliminating border instances improves the classification accuracy of decision trees and reduces the tree size, which reduces the training and classification times. In datasets without intentionally added noise, applying noise filters without the use of the built-in Reduced Error Pruning gave the best classification accuracy. ENN, RENN, and ALLKNN outperformed decision trees learning without pruning in 9, 9, and 8 out of 13 datasets, respectively. The datasets reduced using ENN and RENN without built-in pruning were more effective when noise was intentionally introduced in different ratios. (shrink)

A conventional wisdom about the progress of physics holds that successive theories wholly encompass the domains of their predecessors through a process that is often called reduction. While certain influential accounts of inter-theory reduction in physics take reduction to require a single "global" derivation of one theory's laws from those of another, I show that global reductions are not available in all cases where the conventional wisdom requires reduction to hold. However, I argue that a weaker "local" form of reduction, (...) which defines reduction between theories in terms of a more fundamental notion of reduction between models of a single fixed system, is available in such cases and moreover suffices to uphold the conventional wisdom. To illustrate the sort of fixed-system, inter-model reduction that grounds inter-theoretic reduction on this picture, I specialize to a particular class of cases in which both models are dynamical systems. I show that reduction in these cases is underwritten by a mathematical relationship that follows the broad prescriptions of Nagel/Schaffner reduction, and support this claim with several examples. Moreover, I show that this broadly Nagelian analysis of inter-model reduction encompasses several cases that are sometimes cited as instances of the "physicist's" limit-based notion of reduction. (shrink)

Svirsky, Howard, and Berman’s paper “E-Cigarettes and the Multiple Responsibilities of the FDA” offers a significant contribution to a knowledge domain that might be called “harm reduction e...

This article examines the technique and legality of induced abortion of one or more fetuses in a multiple pregnancy, where the aim is the destruction of some but not all of the fetuses present (selective reduction of pregnancy). It concludes that since the legal status of the procedure in English law is unclear, it may be a criminal offence to perform selective reduction even where there is an ostensible clinical need. Moreover if the procedure is carried out negligently, and any (...) infant damaged as a result is subsequently born alive, he or she may have a civil claim against the practitioner who carried out the procedure. (shrink)

The issue of phenomenological reduction proceeds from the methodological requirement of the absence of presupposition : however, transcendental subjectivity as an actor of the reduction constitutes a presupposition that is inherent to Husserl’s approach. Radicality would then impose a reduction the subject submits to, not a reduction the subject chooses. That is how disease was considered by Nietzsche. Indeed, disease is the event through which subjective flesh shows itself from itself, in pathological phenomena, and shows itself as the ground and (...) origin of any sense and value. Disease encloses the subject in the sphere of his immanent lived-experiences, where the essence of being reveals itself as pathos : it operates what is to be called a pathological reduction. From this ordeal Nietzsche shows then that metaphysics is “pathologically determined”, and he discloses its pathogenic, i.e. nihilist, character. (shrink)

In his recent book Foundations of Space-Time Theories Michael Friedman argues for a realism about theoretical structure based on specific methodological practices concerning theory unification. Theoretical structures that are essential to the unifying process are to be given a literal realistic interpretation while the remaining ones can be considered as having merely representational status. Friedman’s account of unification involves the notion of a literal reduction or identification of observational properties of entities or objects with their theoretical counterparts. The relationship between (...) these two levels of theory can be construed as that of submodel to model. Once the appropriate reductions are achieved we are then free to conjoin certain theoretical structures with others thereby enabling us, over time, to produce a unified theory encompassing a variety of domains.The alternative to this view Friedman describes as the representationalist approach. Instead of characterizing the relationship between observational and theoretical structures as that of submodel to model the observational properties are simply correlated by way of an embedding (as opposed to an identity) map with their appropriate theoretical counterparts. (shrink)

The historical development of debates about reduction testifies to us that reductionism in biology must proceed by providing a precise and complete causal explanation for every biological phenomenon at the level of molecules. An intertheoretical reduction model was proposed in biology but proved unsuccessful due to its inability to accommodate and explain the success of molecular biology. Ever since the molecular structure of the gene was discovered, actual biological research has successfully generated explanations for complex biological facts in terms of (...) the predicates of molecular biology. Biological phenomena, which classical functional biology explains only with limited powers, are more accurately described and comprehensively explained as the reduction processes advance with molecular biology. It is clear that the reductionist research program of molecular biology is the best account of success and progress in biology. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Chalmers and Jackson’s defence of the a priori entailment thesis, that is, the claim that microphysical truths a priori entail ordinary non-phenomenal truths such as ‘water covers 60% of the Earth surface’, which they use as a premise for an argument against the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness. Their argument relies on a certain view about the possession conditions of macroscopic concepts such as WATER, known as ascriptivism. In the paper I distinguish two (...) versions of ascriptivism: reductive versus non-reductive ascriptivism. According to reductive ascriptivism, competent users of a concept have the ability to infer truths involving such concept from lower-level truths, whereas according to non-reductive ascriptivism, all that is required in order to be a competent user of a concept is to be able to infer truths involving that concept from other truths, which need not be lower-level truths. I argue, first, that the a priori entailment thesis is committed to reductive ascriptivism, and secondly, that reductive ascriptivism is problematic because it trivializes the notion of a priori knowledge. Therefore, I conclude that Chalmers and Jackson have not presented a convincing case for the claim that microphysical truths entail ordinary non-phenomenal truths a priori, especially when we understand this claim in the sense that is relevant for their argument against the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness. (shrink)

In order to introduce the question of tbe « given » and of its elaboration with respect to the motifs of reduction, construction and destruction, we take as a point of departure the first courses of Heidegger at the University of Freiburg in the years 1919-1920. Framed by a sustained debate with the different figures of Neokantianism that occupied the forefront of the philosophical scene in Germany, Heidegger’s aim is to take up and to radicalize Husserl’s phenomenological enterprise indexed to (...) intuition of an ultimate givenness, through the question : « Was heißt “gegeben”, “Gegebenheit” — dieses Zauberwort der Phänomenologie und der “Stein des Anstoßes” bei den anderen ? » This project of taking Husserl’s phenomenlogy will lead Heidegger to reopen the ongoing debate between Husserl and Natorp about the method of reconstruction vs. reduction. So we could venture the hypothesis, according to which the Heideggerian theme of Destruktion “destruction” or “deconstruction,” if it does inherit a sense from the Husserlian Abbau , from the de-sedimentation of accumulated strata that have come to obstruct the grasp of insight , this theme could all the same be understood as the taking up again — in a practical reversal — Rekonstruktion, Natorpian reconstruction. (shrink)

This chapter considers the arguments for and against reductionism and then considers its main rival: emergence. A large part of the reductionist program is generally considered a failure. Philosophers of science have been chipping away at reductionist claims for a couple of decades now. Philosopher Jaegwon Kim has been a central figure in matters of reduction, supervenience, and emergence. He presents three related puzzles for the antireductionist: causal redundancy; downward causation and causal drainage. According to the author, reduction and emergence (...) have earned a place in science and the philosophy of science. The chapter finally presents the diagnosis of the controversy between reductionists and their foes and then briefly considers some theological ramifications. (shrink)

In this paper I shall discuss the concept of reduction—ontological, methodological, and epistemological or theoretical—in the biological sciences, with special emphasis on genetics and evolutionary biology. I suggest that perhaps, because the biological world has a form different from the non-biological world, it is appropriate to think of terms or metaphors different from those we would use when trying to understand the inorganic world. As such, the attempt to show that the biological is simply a deductive consequence of the physicochemical (...) is doomed to failure. The philosophical complexity of reductionism on the one hand and its potential for advancing the study of biology on the other thus requires continuing the ongoing dialogue between philosophers and biologists. (shrink)

Towards the end of Beyond Reduction Horst hypothesizes that ‘it is a general design principle of the cognitive architecture of humans that the mind possesses multiple models for understanding and interacting practically with different aspects of the world’. The suggestion is made following a discussion of recent research in cognitive science. According to Horst, the hypothesis is also consistent with what recent non-reductionist tendencies in the philosophy of science teach us. Taken together, Horst claims these two sets of evidence motivate (...) a new post-reductionist approach to the philosophy of mind. After outlining the route Horst takes to reach this claim, I shall raise a worry I have about the claim and the route taken to it.Beyond Reduction is in three parts. Part one frames the debate. In Chapter 1 Horst notes how naturalism is a view to which nearly all philosophers of mind, some of whom hold quite disparate views, would subscribe. He formulates a schema for naturalism that he thinks most would accept: ‘naturalism about domain D is the view that all features of D are to be accommodated within the framework of nature as it is understood by the natural sciences’. Horst acknowledges that the schema under-describes matters. The notion of ‘accommodation’ may be understood as involving either explanation or metaphysical determination; it is also unclear how we are to understand ‘the …. (shrink)

I start by reconsidering two familiar arguments against modal realism. The argument from epistemology relates to the issue whether we can infer the existence of concrete objects by a priori means. The argument from pragmatics purports to refute the analogy between the indispensability of possible worlds and the indispensability of unobserved entities in physical science and of numbers in mathematics. Then I present two novel objections. One focusses on the obscurity of the notion of isolation required by modal realism. The (...) other stresses the arbitrary nature of the rules governing the behaviour of Lewisean universes. All four objections attack the reductive analysis of modality that is supposed to be the chief merit of modal realism. (shrink)

Approaches to the naturalization of phenomenology usually understand naturalization as a matter of rendering continuous the methods, epistemologies, and ontologies of phenomenological and natural scientific inquiry. Presupposed in this statement of the problematic, however, is that there is an original discontinuity, a rupture between phenomenology and the natural sciences that must be remedied. I propose that this way of thinking about the issue is rooted in a simplistic understanding of the phenomenological reduction that entails certain assumptions about the subject matter (...) of phenomenology and its relationship to the natural sciences. By contrast, Merleau‐Ponty's first work, The Structure of Behavior, presents a radically different approach to the phenomenological reduction, one that traverses the natural sciences and integrates them into phenomenology from the outset. I outline the argument for this position in The Structure of Behavior and then discuss consequences for current methodological issues surrounding the naturalization of phenomenology, focusing on the relationship between empirical sciences of mind, phenomenological psychology, and transcendental phenomenology. This novel exegesis of Merleau‐Ponty's view on the reduction offers new insight into his oft‐quoted remark that the phenomenological reduction is impossible to complete. (shrink)