In this paper, I argue that anti-reductionist moral realism still has trouble explaining supervenience. My main target here will be Russ Shafer-Landau's attempt to explain the supervenience of the moral on the natural in terms of the constitution of moral property instantiations by natural property instantiations. First, though, I discuss a recent challenge to the very idea of using supervenience as a dialectical weapon posed by Nicholas Sturgeon. With a suitably formulated supervenience thesis in hand, I try to (...) show how Shafer-Landau's proffered strategy to explain supervenience not only fails to explain supervenience, but that it also has a number of implausible consequences. The more general lesson is that strategies which may work well for explaining supervenience in the philosophy of mind and other areas cannot be assumed to carry over successfully to the metaethical context. We should therefore treat so-called `companions in guilt' arguments in this area of philosophy with considerable skepticism. Key Words: expressivism • moral realism • non-naturalism • reductionism • supervenience • trope. (shrink)

For nearly thirty years, there has been a consensus (at least in English-speaking countries) that reductionism is a mistake and that there are autonomous special sciences. This consensus has been based on an argument from multiple realizability. But Jaegwon Kim has argued persuasively that the multiple realizability argument is flawed.1 I will sketch the recent history of the debate, arguing that much --but not all--of the anti-reductionist consensus survives Kim's critique. This paper was originally titled "Anti-Reductionism Strikes (...) Back", but in the course of writing the paper, I came to think that the concepts used in the debate would not serve either position very well. (shrink)

Kim’s causal exclusion argument purports to demonstrate that the non-reductive physicalist must treat mental properties (and macro-level properties in general) as causally inert. A number of authors have attempted to resist Kim’s conclusion by utilizing the conceptual resources of Woodward’s interventionist conception of causation. The viability of these responses has been challenged by Gebharter, who argues that the causal exclusion argument is vindicated by the theory of causal Bayesian networks (CBNs). Since the interventionist conception of causation relies crucially on CBNs (...) for its foundations, Gebharter’s argument appears to cast significant doubt on interventionism’s anti-reductionist credentials. In the present article, we both (1) demonstrate that Gebharter’s CBN-theoretic formulation of the exclusion argument relies on some unmotivated and philosophically significant assumptions (especially regarding the relationship between CBNs and the metaphysics of causal relevance), and (2) use Bayesian networks to develop a general theory of causal inference for multi-level systems that can serve as the foundation for an anti-reductionist interventionist account of causation.1. (shrink)

I argue that there are good reasons to deny both type-type and token-token mind-brain identity theories. Yet on the other hand there are compelling reasons for thinking that there is a causal basis for the mind. I argue that a path out of this impasse involves not only showing that criteria of individuation do not determine identity, but also that there are sound methodological reasons for thinking that the cause of intelligent behavior is a real natural kind. Finally, a commitment (...) to this methodology suggests both that these familiar anti-reductionist arguments fail to establish that identity is impossible and at the same time suggest that the preferred alternative will be some version of neutral monism. (shrink)

According to anti‐reductionism, audiences have a default (but defeasible) epistemic entitlement to accept observed testimony. This paper explores the prospects of arguing from this premise to a conclusion in ethics, to the effect that speakers enjoy a default (but defeasible) moral entitlement to expect to be trusted when they testify. After proposing what I regard as the best attempt to link the two, I conclude that any argument from the one to the other will depend on a strong epistemological (...) assumption that has not yet been discussed in this connection. (shrink)

One of the central points of contention in the epistemology of testimony concerns the uniqueness (or not) of the justification of beliefs formed through testimony-whether such justification can be accounted for in terms of, or 'reduced to,' other familiar sort of justification, e.g. without relying on any epistemic principles unique to testimony. One influential argument for the reductionist position, found in the work of Elizabeth Fricker, argues by appeal to the need for the hearer to monitor the testimony for (...) credibility. Fricker (1994) argues, first, that some monitoring for trustworthiness is required if the hearer is to avoid being gullible, and second, that reductionism but not anti-reductionism is compatible with ascribing an important role to the process of monitoring in the course of justifiably accepting observed testimony. In this paper we argue that such an argument fails. (shrink)

This essay examines the peritrope argument within the history of philosophy and discusses its various permutations, beginning with Plato and eventually mathematized with Gödel, each of which presents a philosophical system that either stands or collapses with this “peritropic” insight. I argue that the peritrope or self-reference argument itself presupposes a certain anti-reductionism, in terms of both anthropology and metaphysics, and is ultimately grounded in Aristotle’s anthropological insight that the human being is the “rational animal”. Thus the root of (...) the anti-reductionist, peritropic argument belongs to the self-transcendent nature of rationality itself. After discussing Aristotle’s anthropology in terms of this rational transcendence, I trace the history of the self-reference argument from Plato to Gödel and discuss its various implications as applied to any and every form of reductionism. My hope is that engagement with this most basic and often overlooked philosophic insight can counter certain reductionist trends in modernity. (shrink)

One of the central points of contention in the epistemology of testimony concerns the uniqueness (or not) of the justification of beliefs formed through testimony--whether such justification can be accounted for in terms of, or 'reduced to,' other familiar sort of justification, e.g. without relying on any epistemic principles unique to testimony. One influential argument for the reductionist position, found in the work of Elizabeth Fricker, argues by appeal to the need for the hearer to monitor the testimony for (...) credibility. Fricker (1994) argues, first, that some monitoring for trustworthiness is required if the hearer is to avoid being gullible, and second, that reductionism but not anti-reductionism is compatible with ascribing an important role to the process of monitoring in the course of justifiably accepting observed testimony. In this paper we argue that such an argument fails. (shrink)

This contribution to the topical collection presents an overview of my previous work in epistemology. Specifically, I review arguments for the claim that important skeptical arguments in the history of philosophy motivate externalism in epistemology. In effect, only externalist epistemologies can be anti-skeptical epistemologies. I also review motivations for adopting a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity. Such an account, I argue, has considerable explanatory power regarding the nature, value and scope of knowledge. In addition, a virtue-theoretic account (...) is tailor made for externalism. In effect, it shows how externalist epistemologies can also be normative epistemologies. Finally, I review arguments in favor of a general framework for understanding the epistemology of testimony, and, in particular, the transmission of knowledge. The framework motivates anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony, as well as the common anti-reductionist theme that trust can be epistemically significant, as opposed to merely practically significant. The framework, I argue, also weds nicely to a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity, and in doing so answers an important objection to virtue epistemology—that the view is overly individualistic. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with the epistemological status of testimony and the question of what may confer justification on true testimonial beliefs and enable us to call such beliefs knowledge. In particular, it addresses certain anti-reductionist arguments in the epistemology of testimony and their incompatibility with the grammatical categories of egophoricity (conjunct/disjunct marking) and evidentiality (information source marking) present in the architecture of natural languages. First, the tradition of epistemological individualism and its rationale are discussed, as well (...) as certain attempts within this tradition to include testimony-based beliefs in the body of legitimate and rational beliefs. The next section is concerned with the anti-reductionist approach to testimonial beliefs and some arguments supporting ‘the credulity principle’ grounded in Thomas Reid's philosophy of common sense. The last two sections show how the anti-reductionist argumentation is threatened with an insoluble dilemma when considered in the context of languages with the grammatical categories of egophoricity (conjunct/disjunct marking) and evidentiality (information source marking). Special attention is paid to the justificatory role of egophoric and evidential marking; how these grammatical categories may influence the process of belief formation, and consequently, how this bears upon the nature of justification for testimonial beliefs. The final conclusion of the paper is that the anti-reductionist claim concerning the directness and non-inferential nature of testimonial knowledge is bound to meet objections grounded in the structure of many natural languages. This leads to a paradox: in discussion with reductionism, anti-reductionists do seek support for their arguments in common sense beliefs reflected in everyday language, and, on the other hand, their claims are incompatible with the linguistic data found in a number of natural languages. (shrink)

This paper analyses the anti-reductionist argument from renormalisation group explanations of universality, and shows how it can be rebutted if one assumes that the explanation in question is captured by the counterfactual dependence account of explanation.

The article presents a careful analysis of the idea of the “open texture” of empirical concepts and the problems of verification in the way that they were formulated by Friedrich Waismann. The idea of the “open texture” means for Waismann a certain type of a linguistic indeterminacy or a sort of lack of definition, which must be distinguished from, and linked to, another types like vagueness or ambiguity. It is shown that empirical statements are not conclusively verifiable for two different (...) reasons: the incompleteness of description of the material object and the open texture of the terms involved. We cannot conclusively verify statements in which the empirical concepts are used, because we cannot define these concepts in an exhaustive way because of their open texture. Thus, the definition of the concept will be incomplete. Waismann’s approach to definition plays here a key role, and it is directly related to the open texture of concepts. The author proposes interpreting the open texture as an immanent property of the concept, as something that is embedded in it a priori, and which can cause a vagueness. Nevertheless, an open texture must be distinguished form a vagueness. This leads to the conclusion that an open texture is a possibility of vagueness; vagueness can be remedied by giving more accurate rules, open texture cannot. In this sense, the “open texture” of a language allows for a more precise definition of concepts (by adjusting the definition) if appropriate circumstances arise. This justifies the thesis that the argument of the open texture is the ontological basis of the linguistic anti-reductionism of Friedrich Waismann. (shrink)

_Conservative Reductionism_ sets out a new theory of the relationship between physics and the special sciences within the framework of functionalism. It argues that it is wrong-headed to conceive an opposition between functional and physical properties and to build an anti-reductionist argument on multiple realization. By contrast, all properties that there are in the world, including the physical ones, are functional properties in the sense of being causal properties, and all true descriptions that the special sciences propose can (...) in principle be reduced to physical descriptions by means of functional reduction, despite multiple realization. The book develops arguments for from the metaphysics of properties and the philosophy of physics. These arguments lead to a conservative ontological reductionism. It then develops functional reduction into a fully-fledged, conservative theory reduction by means of introducing functional sub-types that are coextensive with physical types, illustrating that conservative reductionism by means of case studies from biology. (shrink)

Epicurus' "On Nature" 25 is the key text for anti-reductionist interpretations of Epicurus' philosophy of mind. In it, Epicurus is trying to argue against those, like Democritus, who say that everything occurs 'of necessity,' and in the course of this argument, he says many things that appear to conflict with an Identity Theory of Mind and with causal determinism. In this paper, I engage in a close reading of this text in order to show that it does not (...) contain any clear statement of either a doctrine of radically emergent properties and "downwards causation" (contra David Sedley) or of the non-reducibility of the mental to the atomic (contra Julia Annas). I argue that Epicurus' main thesis is that we cannot consistently argue against our conception of ourselves as rational agents, and that it is our reason that allows us to reform our characters, control our actions, and blame and praise one another appropriately. The way that Epicurus describes the development and causal efficacy of reason in "On Nature" book 25 is consistent both with reductionism and (more surprisingly) with causal determinism. (shrink)

During the past few decades, philosophers of biology have debated the issue of reductionism versus anti-reductionism, with both sides often claiming a ‘pluralist’ position. However, both sides also tend to focus on a single research paradigm, which analyzes living things in terms of certain macromolecular components. I offer a case study where biologists pursue other analytic pathways, in a tradition of quantitative genetics that originates with the initially purely mathematical theories of R. A. Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and (...) Sewall Wright in the 1930s. Aster Models offers a class of statistical models designed for studying the fitness of plant and animal populations, by integrating the measurements of separate, sequential, non-normally distributed fitness components in novel ways. Their work generates important theoretical and practical results that do not require elaboration by molecular biology, and thus serves as a counterexample to the claims of philosophers whose ‘pluralism’ still harbors reductionist assumptions. (shrink)

Reductionism and antireductionism are among the most largely and hotly debated topics in philosophy of biology today. In this section of the volume, aiming to convey the current situation in the philosophy of the natural and life sciences, these topics are specifically addressed in Mehmet Elgin’s paper, focusing on biochemistry. Elgin strongly supports reductionism, first by claiming that the now classical argument based on multiple realizability does not entail anti-reductionism and secondly highlighting how the version of methodological reductionism that (...) biochemistry has been adopting – centered on “the principle that biological functions of biomolecules in living cells can be understood in terms of chemical and physical properties of those molecules”1 – has proved largely successful, teaching “us new knowledge about the biological systems”. Taken together, these two arguments are deemed to provide good grounds for a thorough defence of reductionism. While Elgin chooses biochemistry as his privileged standpoint on the issue, I shall dwell on the stances emerging in the health sciences. Although the health sciences are closely intertwined with – amongst others – biology and biochemistry, they also have their own peculiar features. Referring to some examples taken from different medical disciplines, I will question whether reductionism can be regarded as not only a viable, option, but as the best solution to gain new knowledge about biomedical systems. I shall suggest that considerations arising from current medical research and practice support a pluralistic approach to the topic, in which both reductionist and antireductionist stances can be accommodated in different ways. (shrink)

Local reductionism purports to defend a middle ground in the debate about the epistemic status of testimony-based beliefs. It does so by acknowledging the practical ineliminability of testimony as a source of knowledge, while insisting that such an acknowledgment need not entail a default-acceptance view, according to which there exists an irreducible warrant for accepting testimony. The present paper argues that local reductionism is unsuccessful in its attempt to steer a middle path between reductionism and anti-reductionism about testimonial justification. (...) In particular, it challenges local reductionism 'from within', without appealing to anti-reductionist intuitions. By offering novel arguments to the effect that local reductionism fails by its own standards, the present paper considerably strengthens the case against this version of reductionism. Local reductionism, it is argued, fails for three main reasons. First, it cannot account for the rationality of testimonial rejection in paradigmatic cases, even though the possibility of rational rejection is thought to be of central justificatory importance. Second, it does not provide a sufficiently distinct non-testimonial basis to which testimonial justification can be successfully reduced. Finally, local reductionism is shown to be an intrinsically unstable position, in danger of collapsing into full-fledged 'credulism' of the kind historically associated with Thomas Reid. (shrink)

Ethical reductionism is the best version of naturalistic moral realism. Reductionists regard moral properties as identical to properties appearing in successful scientific theories. Nonreductionists, including many of the Cornell Realists, argue that moral properties instead supervene on scientific properties without identity. I respond to two arguments for nonreductionism. First, nonreductionists argue that the multiple realizability of moral properties defeats reductionism. Multiple realizability can be addressed in ethics by identifying moral properties uniquely or disjunctively with properties of the special sciences. (...) Second, nonreductionists argue that irreducible moral properties explain empirical phenomena, just as irreducible special-science properties do. But since irreducible moral properties don't successfully explain additional regularities, they run the risk of being pseudoscientific properties. Reductionism has all the benefits of nonreductionism, while also being more secure against anti-realist objections because of its ontological simplicity. (shrink)

In a recent work (Grasso et al., 2021 ), practitioners of the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) claim to have overcome the weaknesses of causal reductionism in producing a coherent account of causation, as causal reductionism would blatantly conflate causation with prediction and could not answer the question of ‘what caused what.’ In this paper, I reject such a dismissal of causal reductionism since IIT anti-reductionists misunderstand the reductionist stance. The reductionists can still invoke a causal account stemming from (...) the causal power of the universe’s basic units and interactions that, eventually, may lead to structures supporting integrated information. Additionally, I claim that the IIT-inspired misunderstanding of causal reductionism originates from the former’s metaphysical deficit, conflating information with causation. However, as a possible way out, if IIT is complemented with a deeper metaphysical ground, such as nested hylomorphism, an improved argument against causal reductionism can be made to work by invoking formal causality as the ultimate cause of integration in natural systems. (shrink)

Patricia Churchland's Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain is her most recent wide-ranging argument for mind-to-brain reductionism. It's one of the leading anti-dualist works in neurophilosophy. It thus deserves careful attention by anti-reductionists. We survey the main arguments in this book for her thesis that the self is nothing but the brain. These arguments are based largely on the self's dependence upon neural activities as reflected in its various impairments, its unified experiences, and its powers (...) of agency. We show that dualism is quite compatible with this neural dependence. We argue that dualism can not only counter--but also turn the tables on--her arguments. Unlike most other critics, we focus not only on her hard problems but also on her easy problems in explaining consciousness. A new non-Cartesian substance dualism is presented that avoids existing dualist causal issues. It may thus avoid perennial physicalist and dualist problems. -/- . (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present, in a clear and accessible way, Donald Davidson's anomalous monism. I stress that what distinguishes Davidson's monism from other identity theories of the mind is the conjunction of an identity thesis (viz. the thesis that every mental event is a physical event) with an anti-reductionist argument, according to which there are no strict psychophysical laws.

This paper argues that within consciousness studies, dualist vs. reductionist debates typically characterise experience in ways which do not correspond to ordinary experience, and that to understand consciousness one must start with an accurate description of its phenomenology. Only then can one develop an understanding of how experiences viewed from a first-person perspective relate to events in the brain viewed from a third-person perspective. The paper then lists some common arguments for conscious experiences (accurately described) being nothing more (...) than brain states along with their fallacies. It concludes that there are fundamental problems with ontological reductionism of conscious experiences to brain states that cannot be resolved. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been familiar with the contrast between predicates privado privado son las únicas características cualitativas realmente simples. Con base en que, después de todo, sus referentes externos admiten un análisis estructural, relacional, causal o funcional de algún tipo. En este artículo quiero adoptar un enfoque más general y más filosófico que los argumentos antireduccionistas evidenciando los problemas que generan con la filosofía de la ciencia; la neurociencia emergente y con la historia de la ciencia en general. Sus argumentos (...) carecen incluso de solidez con respecto a los estándares de la filosofía puramente analítica únicas características cualitativas realmente simples. Con base en que, después de todo, sus referentes externos admiten un análisis estructural, relacional, causal o funcional de algún tipo. En este artículo quiero adoptar un enfoque más general y más filosófico que los argumentos antireduccionistas evidenciando los problemas que generan con la filosofía de la ciencia; la neurociencia emergente y con la historia de la ciencia en general. Sus argumentos carecen incluso or concepts that denote “qualitative simples,” as opposed to predicates or concepts that denote or express “structural, relational, causal, or functional” features. The tendency has been to think of these two classes of properties as being ontologically quite different from each other. Some would insist that the features displayed in this private cognitive domain are the only genuinely simple qualitative features, on grounds that their external brethren all turn out to admit of a structural, relational, causal, or functional analysis of some kind after all. In this paper I wish to take a more general and more philosophical approach to the anti-reductionist arguments which run into trouble with the philosophy of science, with emerging neuroscience, and with the history of science generally. They lack integrity even by the standards of purely analytic philosophy. / Los filósofos conocen bien el contraste entre predicados o conceptos que denotan características “cualitativas simples”, a diferencia de predicados o conceptos que señalan características “estructurales, relacionales, causales o funcionales”. La tendencia ha sido pensar estas dos clases de propiedades como ontológicamente diferentes entre sí. Algunos insistirían en que las características que se muestran en este dominio cognitivo de solidez con respecto a los estándares de la filosofía puramente analítica. (shrink)

A logical argument known as Fitch’s Paradox of Knowability, starting from the assumption that every truth is knowable, leads to the consequence that every truth is also actually known. Then, given the ordinary fact that some true propositions are not actually known, it concludes, by modus tollens, that there are unknowable truths. The main literature on the topic has been focusing on the threat the argument poses to the so called semantic anti-realist theories, which aim to epistemically characterize the (...) notion of truth; according to those theories, every true proposition must be knowable. But the paradox seems to be a problem also for epistemology and philosophy of science: the conclusion of the paradox – the claim that there are unknowable truths – seems to seriously narrow our epistemic possibilities and to constitute a limit for knowledge. This fact contrasts with certain views in philosophy of science according to which every scientific truth is in principle knowable and, at least at an ideal level, a perfected, “all-embracing”, omniscient science is possible. The main strategies proposed in order to avoid the paradoxical conclusion, given their effectiveness, are able to address only semantic problems, not epistemological ones. However, recently Bernard Linsky (2008) proposed a solution to the paradox that seems to be effective also for the epistemological problems. In particular, he suggested a possible way to block the argument employing a type-distinction of knowledge. In the present paper, firstly, we introduce the paradox and the threat it represents for a certain views in epistemology and philosophy of science; secondly, we show Linsky’s solution; thirdly, we argue that this solution, in order to be effective, needs a certain kind of justification, and we suggest a way of justifying it in the scientific field; fourthly, we show that the effectiveness of our proposal depends on the degree of reductionism adopted in science: it is available only if we do not adopt a complete reductionism. (shrink)

A central theme in Wittgenstein’s post-Tractatus remarks on the limits of language is that we ‘cannot use language to get outside language’. One illustration of that idea is his comment that, once we have described the procedure of teaching and learning a rule, we have ‘said everything that can be said about acting correctly according to the rule’; ‘we can go no further’. That, it is argued, is an expression of anti-reductionism about meaning and rules. A framework is presented (...) for assessing the debate between reductionist and anti-reductionist readings of Wittgenstein’s views about meaning and use. It is argued that that debate cannot be settled merely by reference to Wittgenstein’s general opposition to reductionism. An important argument for anti-reductionism about rules and meaning, from Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, is discussed. Putative evidence of reductionism about meaning in the Brown Book is considered; an alternative reading is proposed. The nature of Wittgenstein’s anti-reductionism is examined. It is argued, first, that Wittgenstein accepts that semantic and normative facts supervene on non-semantic, non-normative facts and, second, that at many points his treatment of meaning and rules goes beyond the kind of pleonastic claim that is often taken to define non-reductionist, quietist, positions in philosophy. (shrink)

The key idea behind reduction is a simple and familiar one: it’s that there’s more to things than meets the eye. Surprisingly, this simple idea provides the resources to block a number of notable anti-reductionist arguments: Mackie’s argument from queerness against objective moral values, Kripke’s Humphrey objection and its recent variants, and Jubien’s objection from irrelevance against Lewisian modal realism. What is wrong with each of these arguments is that they suppose that what is to be (...) reduced must not be dissimilar to what it is to be reduced to. This supposition is shown to be misguided and that the success or otherwise of a reduction turns on quite different considerations. (shrink)

I critically evaluate the influential new wave account of theory reduction in science developed by Paul Churchland and Clifford Hooker. First, I cast doubt on claims that the new wave account enjoys a number of theoretical virtues over its competitors, such as the ability to represent how false theories are reduced by true theories. Second, I argue that the genuinely novel claim that a corrected theory must be specified entirely by terms from the basic reducing theory is in fact too (...) restrictive for scientific practice and should be rejected. Basic theories co-evolve with nonbasic theories in a mutually interactive way, and thus the basic theories incorporate the concepts and concerns of nonbasic theories. Third, I show that once its ontological consequences are duly noted, the reductive part the new wave account collapses into the classical theory developed within the logical empiricist tradition. As such, it still falls prey to standard anti-reductionist argument based upon multiple realizability and the cross-classification of special science and physical science terms. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to defeat some standard anti-reductionist arguments concerning sensory qualia. Initially conditions on intertheoretic reduction in general are established. The standard arguments are then shown to presuppose a false conception of what reduction requires; or to commit a familiar intensional fallacy; or to be unsound; or to equivocate on crucial terms. An exploration of our making direct introspective contact with our neurophysiological states concludes the paper.

A common argumentative strategy employed by anti-reductionists involves claiming that one kind of entity cannot be identified with or reduced to a second because what can intelligibly be predicated of one cannot be predicated intelligibly of the other. For instance, it might be argued that mind and brain are not identical because it makes sense to say that minds are rational but it does not make sense to say that brains are rational. The scope and power of this kind (...) of argument — if valid — are obvious; but if it turns out that ‘It makes sense to say that...’ creates an opaque context, such arguments will fail. I analyze a possible counterexample to validity and show that it is not conclusive, as it depends on what syntactical construction is given to the premises. This leads to the general observation that the argument form under consideration works for some constructions but not others, and thus to the conclusion that further analysis of intelligibility is called for before it can be known whether the argumentative strategy is open to the anti-reductionist or not. (shrink)

The anti-reductionist who wants to preserve the causal efficacy of mental phenomena faces several problems in regard to mental causation, i.e. mental events which cause other events, arising from her desire to accept the ontological primacy of the physical and at the same time save the special character of the mental. Psychology tries to persuade us of the former, appealing thereby to the results of experiments carried out in neurology; the latter is, however, deeply rooted in our everyday (...) actions and beliefs and despite the constant opposition of science still very much alive. Difficulties, however, arise from a combination of two claims that are widely accepted in philosophy of mind, namely, physical monism and mental realism, the acceptance of which leads us to the greatest problem of mental causation: the problem of causal exclusion. Since physical causes alone are always sufficient for physical effects mental properties are excluded from causal explanations of our behaviour, which makes them “epiphenomenal”. The article introduces Van Gulick’s solution to the exclusion problem which tries to prove that physical properties, in contrast to mental properties, do not have as much of a privileged status with respect to event causation as usually ascribed. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that physical properties are causally relevant whereas mental properties are not. This is followed by my objection to his argument for levelling mental and physical properties with respect to causation of events. I try to show that Van Gulick’s argument rests on a premise that no serious physicalist can accept. (shrink)

Research on animal behavior is typically organized according to a combination of two influential frameworks: Ernst Mayr’s distinction between proximate and ultimate causes, and Niko Tinbergen’s “four questions”. My aim is to debunk two common interpretive misconceptions about Mayr’s proximate–ultimate distinction and its relationship to Tinbergen’s four questions, and to offer a new interpretation that avoids both. The first misconception is that the proximate–ultimate distinction maps cleanly onto Tinbergen’s four questions, marking a boundary between Tinbergen’s evolutionary and survival value questions (...) versus developmental and mechanistic questions. The second is that Mayr’s proximate–ultimate distinction is meant to rule out the relevance of proximate causes to evolutionary explanations. I argue that neither is plausible given the text and Mayr’s philosophical aims, namely, to argue that evolutionary biology cannot be reduced to either the physical sciences or to other areas of biology. Through a reconstruction of Mayr’s anti-reductionist argument, I develop an interpretation according to which the proximate–ultimate distinction marks two ways that teleological reasoning can be naturalistically grounded in biology, corresponding to Mayr’s distinction between teleonomic and adapted systems. Mayr distinguishes reduction, which the proximate–ultimate distinction is meant to block, from analysis, through which he allows that proximate causes, causes that are neither proximate nor ultimate, and chance can all contribute to evolutionary explanations. I conclude by suggesting some ways in which the interpretation defended here reframes our understanding of Mayr’s disagreements with some evolutionary-developmental biologists. (shrink)

Anti-reductionists hold that beliefs based upon comprehension (of both force and content) of tellings are non-inferentially justified. For reductionists, on the other hand, comprehension as such is not in itself a warrant for belief: beliefs based on it are justified only if inferentially supported by other beliefs. I discuss Elizabeth Fricker's argument that even if anti-reductionism is right in principle, its significance is undercut by the presence of background inferential support: for mature knowledgeable adults, justification from comprehension as (...) such plays no active role, and is superseded by inferential warrant. I show that her argument begs important questions. Inferential and non-inferential support combine to over-determine the justification of comprehension-based beliefs. (shrink)

Both anti-reductionist and reductionist accounts of linguistic meaning and mental content face challenges accounting for acquiring concepts as part of learning a first language. Anti-reductionists cannot account for a transition from the pre-conceptual to conceptual without threatening to reduce the latter to the former. Reductionists of a representationalist variety face the challenge of Fodor’s argument that language learning is impossible. This paper examines whether Ginsborg’s account of ‘primitive normativity’ might provide some resources for addressing these issues. (...) I argue that primitive normativity can be understood in either of two ways: a ‘no conception’ version and a ‘local conception’ version. Rejecting the ‘no conception’ account of normativity in favour of a ‘local conception’ of a rule expressed in context-dependent demonstrations and examples provides one response to Fodor’s argument. It also provides anti-reductionism with at least one stepping stone to learning full-blown linguistically articulated concepts based on a more primitive local form of normativity. (shrink)

This paper focuses on two prominent arguments claiming that physicalism entails reductionism. One is Kim’s causal exclusion argument (CEA), and the other is Papineau’s causal argument. The paper argues that Kim’s CEA is not logically valid and that it is driven by two implausible justifications. One is “Edward’s dictum”, which is alien to non-reductive physicalism and should be rejected. The other is by endorsement of Papineau’s conception of the physical, immanent in Papineau’s causal argument. This argument only arrives at (...) the physical property-property identities by using a conception of the physical that licenses anything to be reductively physical, including putative core anti-physical entities; thus, leaving Papineau’s causal argument and Kim’s CEA without a reductive physicalist conclusion of philosophical interest. (shrink)

One of the central themes of Hilary Putnam’s recent book, Reason, Truth and History, is the objectivity of values. The objectivity of values is a central component of the position Putnam calls “internal realism.” Internal realism is an attempt to delimit a point of view which is, on the one hand, objective, and, on the other, non-absolutistic. Internal realism is located precariously between an absolutist position which Putnam calls “metaphysical realism” and a sceptical relativism. The trick is to maintain the (...) viability of the middle way without having the position collapse into either extreme. In this paper, I want, first, to outline the steps Putnam employs to articulate and defend his view, and second, to evaluate the extent to which Putnam is successful in threading his way between metaphysical realism and scepticism. Putnam is not completely successful insofar as the end of the book signals a partial return to the metaphysical realist position from which Putnam had been at such pains earlier to distance himself. The scheme of the paper is as follows. In section 2, I lay out the internal realist position and distinguish it from metaphysical realism and sceptical relativism. In section 3, Putnam’s central argument against metaphysical realism, which Putnam claims is also an argument against reductionism, is presented and discussed. In section 4, Putnam’s case for the objectivity of epistemic values, based upon considerations of rationality, is examined. In section 5, it is shown how the objectivity of epistemic values, conjoined with the anti-reductionist argument of section 3, leads Putnam to argue for the objectivity of ethical and aesthetic values as well. Finally, the extent to which Putnam’s position maintains its balance between realism and relativism is discussed. (shrink)

This paper sets out issues in the realist/antirealist debate in philosophy of religion. These include the existence of God and the meaning of prayer. The paper describes motivations for antirealism in religion such as the recognition of conflicting religious claims and a desire for tolerance. It explores instrumentalism and reductionism as possible antirealist strategies. Parallels between the debate in religion and the corresponding debate in philosophy of science are used to inform the discussion in the religious sphere. Shared aspects of (...) science and religion feature in a pragmatic argument suggesting that the advantages of realism outweigh those of antirealism for religion. (shrink)

The need for representations and computations over their contents in psychological explanations is often cited as both the mark of the genuinely cognitive and a source of skepticism about the reducibility of cognitive theories to neuroscience. A generic version of this anti-reductionist argument is rejected in this paper as unsound, since (i) current thinking about associative learning emphasizes the need for cognitivist resources in theories adequate to explain even the simplest form of this phenomena (Pavlovian conditioning), and yet (...) (ii) the most widely accepted recent theory of associative learning, which utilizes cognitivist resources, has already been reduced to a purely neurophysiological account. Psychoneural reduction of genuinely cognitivist theories is thus already an accomplished scientific fact, despite pronouncements by anti-reductionists about its conceptual impossibility or empirical implausibility. In addition, the specific form of reduction involved in this case (“combinatorial” reduction) provides a promising model for further cognitivist-to-neuroscience theory reductions. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that the most systematic arguments for the impossibility of reducing of social facts are not, in fact, good arguments. The best of these, the multiple realizability argument, has been very successful in convincing people to be non-reductionists in the philosophy of mind, and can plausibly be adapted to argue for anti-reductionism in the social sciences. But it, like the other arguments for the impossibility of social reduction, cannot deliver. Any preference (...) we have for social scientific explanations that don't refer to properties of individuals should not be based on a belief in the impossibility of reduction. (shrink)

The reductionist/anti-reductionist debate about testimonial justification (and knowledge) can be taken to collapse into a controversy about two kinds of underlying monitoring mechanism. The nature and structure of this mechanism remains an enigma in the debate. We suggest that the underlying monitoring mechanism amounts to emotion-based stereotyping. Our main argument in favor of the stereotype hypothesis about testimonial monitoring is that the underlying psychological mechanism responsible for testimonial monitoring has several conditions to satisfy. Each of these conditions (...) is satisfied by our “hot” stereotypical capacities. Intergroup emotions play a key role here. Intergroup emotions inform the agent about which candidate stereotype is better suited to the current situation. Emotions serve as evidence that makes a certain stereotype and its particular profile of features more or less expected. (shrink)

This paper tries to reconstruct Ernst Cassirer's potential reception of the EPR argument, as exposed by Einstein in his letter to Cassirer of March 1937. It is shown that, in conformity with his transcendental epistemology taking the conditions of accessibility as constitutive of the quantum object, Cassirer would probably have rejected the argument. Indeed, Cassirer would probably not have subscribed to its separability/local causality presupposition (which goes against his interpretation of the quantum formalism as a self-suf!cient condition constitutive of the (...) quantum object, without any reliance on spatial intuition), nor to its completeness requirement (as his partial endorsement of Bohr's complementarity, and his rejection of the Kantian "idea of complete determination", illustrate). By rejecting both of its premises, Cassirer's philosophy of physics thus enables to escape the EPR dilemma, and exhibits what, in Kantian terms, might be called a "negative utility" with respect to physical science. A further investigation of the anti-reductionist utility of Cassirer's systematic philosophy with respect to physics and other "symbolic forms" is !nally suggested. (shrink)

Multiple Realizability (MR) must still be regarded as one of the principal arguments against type reductionist accounts of higher-order properties and their special laws. Against this I argue that there is no unique MR but rather a multitude of MR categories. In a slogan: MR is itself “multi-realized”. If this is true then we cannot expect one unique reductionist strategy against MR as an anti-reductionist argument. The main task is rather to develop a taxonomy of (...) the wide variety of MR cases and to sketch possible reductionist answers for each class of cases. The paper outlines some first steps in this direction. (shrink)

An influential argument for anti-reductionism about testimony, due to CAJ Coady, fails, because it assumes that an inductive global defense of testimony would proceed along effectively behaviorist lines. If we take seriously our wealth of non-testimonially justified folk psychological beliefs, the prospects for inductivism and reductionism look much better.

It is widely believed that at least two developments in the last third of the 20th century have given dispositionalism—the view that powers, capacities, potencies, etc. are irreducible real properties—new credibility: (i) the many counterexamples launched against reductive analyses of dispositional predicates in terms of counterfactual conditionals and (ii) a new anti-Humean faith in necessary connections in nature which, it is said, owes a lot to Kripke’s arguments surrounding metaphysical necessity. I aim to show in this paper that (...) necessity is, in fact, of little help for the dispositionalists. My argument makes use of one of the above mentioned counterexamples against Humean reduction: antidotes. Turning the tables, I ask how the dispositionalists themselves can deal with antidotes. The result will be to show that if the dispositionalists are to demystify antidote cases, they must make plausible a conceptualisation of dispositions that does not invoke any kind of necessity. I will cautiously suggest that the anti-Humean link dispositions bring to the world has to be thought of in terms of (Newtonian) forces. (shrink)

This paper critically evaluates Jonathan Lowe's arguments for his non-Cartesian substance dualism. Sections 1 and 2 set out the principal claims of NCSD. The unity argument proposed in Lowe is discussed in Section 3. Throughout his career Lowe offered spirited attacks on reductionism about the self. Section 4 evaluates the anti-reductionist argument that Lowe offers in Subjects of Experience, an argument based on the individuation of mental events. Lowe offers an inventive proposal that the semantic distinction between (...) direct and indirect reference delineates the metaphysical boundary between self and world, and uses this as a further argument against reductionism about the self. This proposal is discussed in Sections 5 and 6. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that non-reductive physicalism (NRP) continues to rely on the ontological aspect of the layer cake model of the world (LCM). NRP is a post-unity account of the relationship between phenomena in the world in the sense that it has been developed in response to the perceived failure of the unity of science thesis. The LCM constitutes a framework for the organisation of phenomena in the world. It articulates the idea that phenomena in the world are (...) organised into levels. Specifically, that phenomena are layered into distinct, hierarchical levels of organisation. Historically, the unity of science thesis and the LCM have been intertwined; the LCM being the framework within which a unity of science might be possible. My argument will demonstrate that, despite a move away from unity of science positions, the LCM persists in post-unity accounts. In order to argue for this thesis, I present a close analysis of Oppenheim & Putnam’s classic presentation of the LCM; picking out the principle of hierarchic compositionality which, I argue, captures the ontological aspect of the LCM. I then demonstrate how NRP continues to rely upon the principle and, as a result, continues to support the ontological aspect of the LCM. This result is significant. It shows that whilst the rejection of the reductionist aspect of the thesis has served as the basis for post-unity positions these positions do not engage directly with the framework within which reduction might be facilitated – the LCM. Furthermore, it demonstrates that pluralist or disunity accounts of the relationship between phenomena in the world will also have to engage directly with the framework of the LCM in order to avoid being merely anti-reductionist. (shrink)

Following an on-line dialogue with Dennett (Velmans, 2001) this paper examines the similarities and differences between heterophenomenology (HP) and critical phenomenology (CP), two competing accounts of the way that conscious phenomenology should be, and normally is incorporated into psychology and related sciences. Dennett’s heterophenomenology includes subjective reports of conscious experiences, but according to Dennett, first person conscious phenomena in the form of “qualia” such as hardness, redness, itchiness etc. have no real existence. Consequently, subjective reports about such qualia should be (...) understood as prescientific attempts to make sense of brain functioning that can be entirely understood in third person terms. I trace the history of this position in behaviourism (Watson, Skinner and Ryle) and early forms of physicalism and functionalism (Armstrong), and summarise some of the difficulties of this view. Critical phenomenology also includes a conventional, third person, scientific investigation of brain and behaviour that includes subjects’ reports of what they experience. CP is also cautious about the accuracy or completeness of subjective reports. However, unlike HP, CP does not assume that subjects are necessarily deluded about their experiences or doubt that these experiences can have real qualities that can, in principle, be described. Such experienced qualities cannot be exhaustively reduced to third-person accounts of brain and behaviour. CP is also reflexive, in it assumes experimenters to have first-person experiences that they can describe much as their subjects do. And crucially, experimenter’s third-person reports of others are based, in the first instance, on their own first-person experiences. CP is commonplace in psychological science, and given that it conforms both to scientific practice and common sense, I argue that there is little to recommend HP other than an attempt to shore up a counterintuitive, reductive philosophy of mind. (shrink)

A wave of recent work in metaphysics seeks to undermine the anti-reductionist, functionalist consensus of the past few decades in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. That consensus apparently legitimated a focus on what systems do, without necessarily and always requiring attention to the details of how systems are constituted. The new metaphysical challenge contends that many states and processes referred to by functionalist cognitive scientists are epiphenomenal. It further contends that the problem lies in functionalism itself, and (...) that, to save the causal significance of mind, it is necessary to re-embrace reductionism. We argue that the prescribed return to reductionism would be disastrous for the cognitive and behavioral sciences, requiring the dismantling of most existing achievements and placing intolerable restrictions on further work. However, this argument fails to answer the metaphysical challenge on its own terms. We meet that challenge by going on to argue that the new metaphysical skepticism about functionalist cognitive science depends on reifying two distinct notions of causality (one primarily scientific, the other metaphysical), then equivocating between them. When the different notions of causality are properly distinguished, it is clear that functionalism is in no serious philosophical trouble, and that we need not choose between reducing minds or finding them causally impotent. The metaphysical challenge to functionalism relies, in particular, on a naïve and inaccurate conception of the practice of physics, and the relationship between physics and metaphysics. Key Words: explanation; functionalism; mental causation; metaphysics; reductionism. (shrink)

It is widely believed that at least two developments in the last third of the 20th century have given dispositionalism—the view that powers, capacities, potencies, etc. are irreducible real properties—new credibility: (i) the many counterexamples launched against reductive analyses of dispositional predicates in terms of counterfactual conditionals and (ii) a new anti-Humean faith in necessary connections in nature which, it is said, owes a lot to Kripke’s arguments surrounding metaphysical necessity. I aim to show in this paper that (...) necessity is, in fact, of little help for the dispositionalists. My argument makes use of one of the above mentioned counterexamples against Humean reduction: antidotes. Turning the tables, I ask how the dispositionalists themselves can deal with antidotes. The result will be to show that if the dispositionalists are to demystify antidote cases, they must make plausible a conceptualisation of dispositions that does not invoke any kind of necessity. I will cautiously suggest that the anti-Humean link dispositions bring to the world has to be thought of in terms of (Newtonian) forces. (shrink)

The multiple-realizability argument has been the mainstay ofanti-reductionist consensus in philosophy of mind for the past thirty years. Reductionist opposition to it has sometimes taken the form of the Disjunctive Move: If mental types are multiply-realizable, they are not coextensive with physical types; they might nevertheless be coextensive with disjunctionsof physical types, and those disjunctions could still underwrite psychophysical reduction. Among anti-reductionists, confidence is high that the Disjunctive Move fails; arguments to this effect, however, often leave (...) something to be desired. I raise difficulties for one anti-reductionist response to the DisjunctiveMove, the Explanatory Response. (shrink)

The typical kind of color realism is reductive: the color properties are identified with properties specified in other terms (as ways of altering light, for instance). If no reductive analysis is available — if the colors are primitive sui generis properties — this is often taken to be a convincing argument for eliminativism. That is, realist primitivism is usually thought to be untenable. The realist preference for reductive theories of color over the last few decades is particularly striking in light (...) of the generally anti-reductionist mood of recent philosophy of mind. The parallels between the mind—body problem and the case of color are substantial enough that the difference in trajectory is surprising. While dualism and non-reductive physicalism are staples, realist primitivism is by and large a recent addition to the color literature. And it remains a minority position, although one that is perhaps gaining support. In this paper, we investigate whether it should be accepted, and conclude it should not be. (shrink)