Crossword clues for reductionism
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 an approach to studying complex systems or ideas by reducing them to a set of simpler components 2 (context philosophy English) Reductionism is a philosophical position which holds that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanation, theories, and meanings. Reductionism strongly reflects a certain perspective on causality. In a reductionist framework, the phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena, are called "epiphenomena". Often there is an implication that the epiphenomenon exerts no causal agency on the fundamental phenomena that explain it. Reductionism does not preclude the existence of what might be called "emergent phenomena", but it does imply the ability to understand those phenomena completely in terms of the processes from which they are composed.
WordNet
n. a theory that all complex systems can be completely understood in terms of their components
the analysis of complex things into simpler constituents
Wikipedia
Reductionism refers to several related but distinct philosophical positions regarding the connections between phenomena, or theories, "reducing" one to another, usually considered "simpler" or more "basic". The Oxford Companion to Philosophy suggests that it is "one of the most used and abused terms in the philosophical lexicon" and suggests a three part division:
- Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts
- Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide explanation in terms of ever smaller entities
- Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb the old, but reduces it to more basic terms. Theory reduction itself is divisible into three: translation, derivation and explanation.
Reductionism can be applied to objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings.
In the sciences, application of methodological reductionism attempts explanation of entire systems in terms of their individual, constituent parts and their interactions. For example, the heat of a gas is reduced to nothing but the average kinetic energy of its molecules in motion. Thomas Nagel speaks of psychophysical reductionism (the attempted reduction of psychological phenomena to physics and chemistry), as do others and physico-chemical reductionism (the attempted reduction of biology to physics and chemistry), again as do others. In a very simplified and sometimes contested form, such reductionism is said to imply that a system is nothing but the sum of its parts. However, a more nuanced view is that a system is composed entirely of its parts, but the system will have features that none of the parts have. "The point of mechanistic explanations is usually showing how the higher level features arise from the parts."
Other definitions are used by other authors. For example, what Polkinghorne calls conceptual or epistemological reductionism is the definition provided by Blackburn and by Kim: that form of reductionism concerning a program of replacing the facts or entities entering statements claimed to be true in one area of discourse with other facts or entities from another area, thereby providing a relationship between them. Such a connection is provided where the same idea can be expressed by "levels" of explanation, with higher levels reducible if need be to lower levels. This use of levels of understanding in part expresses our human limitations in grasping a lot of detail. However, "most philosophers would insist that our role in conceptualizing reality [our need for an hierarchy of "levels" of understanding] does not change the fact that different levels of organization in reality do have different properties."
As this introduction suggests, there are a variety of forms of reductionism, discussed in more detail in subsections below.
Reductionism strongly reflects a certain perspective on causality. In a reductionist framework, the phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena, are called epiphenomena. Often there is an implication that the epiphenomenon exerts no causal agency on the fundamental phenomena that explain it. The epiphenomena are sometimes said to be "nothing but" the outcome of the workings of the fundamental phenomena, although the epiphenomena might be more clearly and efficiently described in very different terms. There is a tendency to avoid taking an epiphenomenon as being important in its own right. This attitude may extend to cases where the fundamentals are not clearly able to explain the epiphenomena, but are expected to by the speaker. In this way, for example, morality can be deemed to be "nothing but" evolutionary adaptation, and consciousness can be considered "nothing but" the outcome of neurobiological processes.
Reductionism should be distinguished from eliminationism: reductionists do not deny the existence of phenomena, but explain them in terms of another reality; eliminationists deny the exist of the phenomena themselves. For example, eliminationists deny the existence of life by their explanation in terms of physical and chemical processes. Daniel Dennett denies the existence of consciousness.
Reductionism also does not preclude the existence of what might be called emergent phenomena, but it does imply the ability to understand those phenomena completely in terms of the processes from which they are composed. This reductionist understanding is very different from emergentism, which intends that what emerges in "emergence" is more than the sum of the processes from which it emerges.
Reductionism is a form of improvised music that developed towards the end of the 20th century. The centres of the music include Berlin, London, Tokyo and Vienna. The key characteristics of the music include microtonality, extended techniques, very soft and quiet dynamics, silence, and unconventional sounds and timbres.
Some of the leading names associated with Reductionism are Radu Malfatti, Toshimaru Nakamura, Axel Dörner and Rhodri Davies.
Usage examples of "reductionism".
Nevertheless, science has progressed together with the ideology of scientific materialism that does embody a number of sacrosanct theories and a priori statements, namely the principles of objectivism, monism, universalism, reductionism, the closure principle, and physicalism.
As, at least in neuroscience, the theoretical limitations of naive reductionism become increasingly apparent, and cold-war suspicions recede into history, the time is ripe for the autonomous Soviet tradition in neurophysiology and psychology to be reassimilated into a more integrated and Universalists neuroscience.
Bridging this gap, I maintain, is essential if we are to move beyond our fragmented culture towards a new synthesis which transcends both the ruthless reductionism of a science indifferent human values and a subjectivism for which truth is but one story amongst many of equal worth.
Upon the demise of the introspectionist movement in modern psychology in the early years of the twentieth century, behaviorism also adopted the principle of reductionism by studying the behavior of animals as a means to understanding human behavior.
It is a massive reductionism, he says, that collapses truth and meaning into functional capacity, and reduces intersubjectivity to rather crass egocentrism.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, until the last few post-Marxist years, Soviet psychology and neurophysiology were set within a specific philosophical tradition which explicitly counterposed a dialectical understanding of mind-brain relations to the mechanistic reductionism which dominates Anglo-American science.
As, at least in neuroscience, the theoretical limitations of naive reductionism become increasingly apparent, and cold-war suspicions recede into history, the time is ripe for the autonomous Soviet tradition in neurophysiology and psychology to be reassimilated into a more integrated and Universalists neuroscience.
But precisely because these quadrants are all so intimately correlated, I can indeed attempt an aggressive reductionism, and it can actually seem to make a lot of sense.
Assuming that their contexts are well founded, and assuming that they do not engage in reductionism, then there is much we can learn from each of these types of theorists.
It will mean discarding many shibboleths, the naive molecular reductionism of the biochemists, the and behaviourism of the psychologists, but we can see the goal clearly.
Understanding and functioning in these worlds, it seems, demands radically different epistemologies from the controlled reductionism of the lab.
As I said, in many cases their hearts are in the right place, but their theoriesbecause they are empirical and monological, because they are weakest-noodle sciences, because they deal with exteriors than can be seen and not interiors that must be arduously interpretedbecause of all that, they end up with a truly insidious form of reductionism, insidious because they are almost completely unaware of what they have done.
Understanding and functioning in these worlds, it seems, demands radically different epistemologies from the controlled reductionism of the lab. Am I then an irretrievably fractured person, entering and re-entering these different worlds of meaning?
In short, the metaphysical principle of reductionism declares that there is nothing that living or nonliving things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.
New Age paradigms and ecotheorists follow this version of subtle reductionism.