A Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition
. Also called reductivism. Tendency to reduce certain notions, whether everyday ones, like physical object, or theoretical ones in science, like electron, to allegedly simpler or more basic notions, or more empirically accessible ones, e.g. one might claim to dispense with the word ‘electron’ and talk only of vapour trails in cloud chambers. To reduce a theory or a science to another is to show that the latter can in principle yield all the results of the former, e.g. that everything psychology tells us we could in principle learn from physiology. Reductionism is a feature especially of PHENOMENALISTS, and other empiricists, and of POSITIVISTS in philosophy of science. See also PHILOSOPHY.
But reduction can also, and in recent discussions usually must, be distinguished from elimination. ‘Water is H2O’ reduces water to H2O but does not say there is no water, while ‘Demons are (really) viruses’ does say that there are no demons.
In reduction we get a straight definition of water, whereas demons are not, or not straightforwardly, defined in terms of viruses. Rather the phenomena once attributed to demons are now thought to be caused by viruses. Similarly MATERIALISM may take a reductive or an eliminative attitude to mental phenomena. A third outlook, however, appeals to SUPERVENIENCE.
To sum up, we might reduce (say) A to B by saying that A is real, but what it is is B—there is only one thing there, which is both A and B, B having explanatory priority; or we might eliminate A, so that there is only B; or we might say that A is real and distinct from B, but supervenes on it.
D.Charles and K.Lennon (eds), Reduction, Explanation, and Realism, Oxford UP, 1993. (Specially commissioned essays. See its ‘Introduction’ for relations between reduction, elimination and supervenience.)
T.Horgan, ‘From supervenience to superdupervenience’, Mind, 1993. (See esp. p. 575 for reductive and eliminative materialism, and the possibility of a third kind, with many references.)
This is the complete article, containing 322 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
View More Summaries on Reductionism
