Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [reductionism]

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Aren't we all philosophical zombies?

I've been reading about the philosophy of the mind, and I'm a bit confused. Everything I've read seems to start with the (unjustified) assumption that there is some aspect of the mind that isn't purely physical or deterministic. For example, take…
Alex
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Is reductionism the primary means of logical analysis in analytic philosophy?

I was reading a philosophical article about analytic philosophy and I saw the claim: Russell and many philosophers influenced by him asserted that complex statements can be reduced to simple components; if their logic does not permit such…
Robert
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What made scientists think that chemistry is reducible to physics and when did that happen?

What I mean by reduction in this context is the following: suppose you are analyzing a simple event like one object striking another in space. At the macroscopic level one, you can describe this event in terms of two masses in collision and the…
David Gudeman
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What are the missing pieces that prevents us from deriving the laws of chemistry from physics?

What are the missing pieces that prevents us from deriving the laws of chemistry from physics? People say it's emergent properties, but it's hard to believe that there are emergent properties between physics and chemistry. Simulating physical laws…
user37389
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What are the problems with reductionism?

It seems intuitive to me to think that if there is a basic substance or building block of nature (e.g. fermions and leptons, etc.), then all facts regarding entities comprised of that substance are reducible into facts about instances of said…
Apodictic Apple Juice
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Is reductionism in conflict with our sense of awe and wonder?

To accuse science of robbing life of the warmth that makes it worth living is so preposterously mistaken, so diametrically opposite to my own feelings and those of most working scientists, I am almost driven to the despair of which I am wrongly…
viuser
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Can mathematics be reduced to arbitrary axioms and logic?

If mathematics is concerned with deductive reasoning, and relies on logic to ensure the soundness of its derivations, if on the other hand, the derivations of mathematics, at least in a philosophical and modern view of the subject, start from…
Zeus
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What are the relations between supervenience, grounding and emergence in philosophy of science?

So, I am wondering if anyone could help me with the notions of grounding (supervenience?) and emergence in the modern discussions in philosophy of science. What are they and what is the relation between them? Any papers or simply thoughts?
kondeusz
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Who was to first to apply the reductionist hypothesis to science?

I don't have much background in philosophy, but I recently read an interesting paper about "emergence" (Anderson, 1972). In that paper, Anderson relates to the "reductionist" hypothesis. When and by whom was this hypothesis first elucidated?…
Amelse Etomer
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How does one judge the "complexity" of a given assumption (for the purpose of producing the “best explanation")?

In philosophy and science, we may wish to argue that some hypothesis 'explains' some facts we observe. In which case, we may lay out some assumptions for our hypothesis, in order to show how these assumptions entail the facts we wish to explain.…
Joe Lee-Doktor
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Hard stuff made easy?

There is a philosophical assumption, inspired by educational didactics, which consists of thinking that any concept, no matter how intricate, can be presented in simple words and easily understood if it is adequately exemplified. The title of the…
Davius
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Is the study of IQ an example of greedy reductionism?

Is the study of IQ an example of greedy reductionism? greedy reductionism occurs when "in their eagerness for a bargain, in their zeal to explain too much too fast, scientists and philosophers ... underestimate the complexities, trying to skip…
user35983
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Is the concept of emergence sufficient in blocking reductionism?

Is emergence the only avenue to follow in order to successfully short-cirquit full reductionist explanations? What other recourse does one have to avoid full-fledged reductionism without risking back-tracking to some sense of essentialism?
user43583
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Is there a term for materialistic non-determinism?

I was trying to explain to someone that an underlying assumption of science is ... and then couldn't come up with a term to describe it. What I'm hoping to give a name to, is the idea that the world is wholly governed by a consistent set of physical…
Arnon Weinberg
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Mechanistic view of the universe

I was chatgpting and found Encouragement of the Mechanistic View The mechanistic view in physics is driven by several key principles: Determinism: The idea that the future behavior of a system can be predicted with complete accuracy if its initial…
Mohit
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