Reductionism in the Philosophy of Mind
Reduction can be understood in a loose or in a strict sense. In the loose sense, entities (or expressions) of a given type are reduced if they refer to "nothing over and above" other entities (expressions) that we consider well established. This is consistent with the conclusion that the reduced entities are among the posits of a mistaken world view and thus have no place in our ontology, and it is also consistent with the conclusion that the reduced entities are conserved among other accepted, better established or understood entities. In the first case we have elimination, and proposing this for entities of a given kind makes us eliminativists about those entities. In the second case we have reduction in the strict sense, and proposing this for a given kind makes us reductionists (sometimes called "conservative" or "retentive" reductionists). Reductionist projects can also be semantic or theoretical. A semantic reduction attempts to show that items belonging to a certain class of expressions are semantically equivalent to—that is, definable in terms of—another class of expressions. A theoretical reduction aims at showing that a given scientific theory can be fully subsumed under (that is, derivable from) another more basic theory.
This page contains 201 words.
Reductionism in the Philosophy of Mind article
Read the rest of this article.
This article contains 2,921 words
(approx. 10 pages at 300 words per page).
Order our Reductionism Article
