The Unity of Science is often thought to be reductionist, but this is because we fail to distinguish questions from answers. The questions asked by different sciences are different---the biologist is interested in different topics from the physicist, and seeks different explanations---but the answers are not peculiar to each particular science, and can range over the whole of scientific knowledge. The biologist is interested in organisms--- concept unknown to physics---but explains physiological processes in terms of chemistry, not a mysterious vital (...) force. The replacement of Laplacian determinism by quantum mechanics further erodes the tendency towards reductionism. The answers given in different explanations are not subsumed under one complete theory; and quantum mechanics does not have a concept of haecceitas, "this-i-ness" which would make its entities the fundamental constituents of everything. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the metaphysics of scale. It investigates the implications of a physical determinable being dimensionful. In particular, it considers the case study of mass, as it features within Newtonian Gravity. Nevertheless, most of the terminology, methodology and arguments developed should be relatively straightforwardly applicable to other determinables and theories. -/- Weak Absolutism about mass holds that mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses. Weak Comparativism denies this. In the first five chapters I argue in favour of Weak (...) Absolutism over Weak Comparativism. The sixth chapter argues against reducing mass to other non-mass facts. The overall conclusion is Strong Absolutism about mass within Newtonian Gravity: mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses, which themselves are fundamental (i.e. they do not require anything further in order to obtain). -/- Comparativism promises to recover all the virtues of absolutism, in particular its empirical adequacy, but at a lower 'metaphysical cost'. Special attention is given to Dasgupta's recent comparativist proposal. Dasgupta interprets the requirement of empirical adequacy in terms of the undetectability of the absolute mass scale. I argue that undetectability is an unsuitable way of understanding empirical adequacy and that we would do better to understand it in terms of a theory's ability to correctly generate the set of empirically possible worlds (or at least the actual world). I refute Dasgupta's comparativism both on my terms and on his own terms. I subsequently develop and strongly criticise alternative versions of comparativism. Chapter five sheds doubt on the supposed 'metaphysical parsimony' of comparativism. -/- This debate should be of particular interest to readers who engage with the substantivalism-relationalism debate. These debates are much more entwined than previously acknowledged, which provides a significant source of mutual inspiration, although I do also draw out some important disanalogies. -/- . (shrink)

Complexity sciences have become famous worldwide thanks to several popular books that served as echo chambers of their promises. These consisted in departing from “classical science” defined as deterministic, reductionist, analytic and mono-disciplinary. Their founders and supporters declared that complexity sciences were going to give rise (or that they have given rise) to a post-Laplacian, antireductionist, holistic and interdisciplinary approach. By taking a closer look at their content and practices, I argue in this article that, because of their physics-oriented, (...) computationalist, and mathematical assumptions, complexity sciences have paradoxically produced knowledge at odds with these four tenets. (shrink)

Filtration combustion is described by Laplacian growth without surface tension. These equations have elegant analytical solutions that replace the complex integro-differential motion equations by simple differential equations of pole motion in a complex plane. The main problem with such a solution is the existence of finite time singularities. To prevent such singularities, nonzero surface tension is usually used. However, nonzero surface tension does not exist in filtration combustion, and this destroys the analytical solutions. However, a more elegant approach exists (...) for solving the problem. First, we can introduce a small amount of pole noise to the system. Second, for regularisation of the problem, we throw out all new poles that can produce a finite time singularity. It can be strictly proved that the asymptotic solution for such a system is a single finger. Moreover, the qualitative consideration demonstrates that a finger with 1 2 of the channel width is statistically stable. Therefore, all properties of such a solution are exactly the same as those of the solution with nonzero surface tension under numerical noise. The solution of the ST problem without surface tension is similar to the solution for the equation of cellular flames in the case of the combustion of gas mixtures. (shrink)

Contrary to a widespread belief, this book establishes that ontological and epistemological reductionism stand or fall together.

Can there be higher level laws of nature even though everything is reducible to the fundamental laws of physics? The computer science notion of level of abstraction explains how there can be.

Laplace wondered about the minimal choice of initial variables and parameters corresponding to a well-posed initial value problem. Discussions of Laplace’s problem in the literature have focused on choosing between spatiotemporal variables relative to absolute space or merely relative to other material bodies and between absolute masses or merely mass ratios. This paper extends these discussions of Laplace’s problem, in the context of Newtonian Gravity, by asking whether mass needs to be included in the initial state at all, or whether (...) a purely spatiotemporal initial state suffices. It is argued that mass indeed needs to be included; removing mass from the initial state drastically reduces the predictive and explanatory power of Newtonian Gravity. (shrink)

Reductionism encompasses a set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological claims about the relation of different scientific domains. The basic question of reduction is whether the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from one scientific domain (typically at higher levels of organization) can be deduced from or explained by the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from another domain of science (typically one about lower levels of organization). Reduction is germane to a variety of issues in philosophy of science, including the structure (...) of scientific theories, the relations between different scientific disciplines, the nature of explanation, the diversity of methodology, and the very idea of theoretical progress, as well as to numerous topics in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, such as emergence, mereology, and supervenience. (shrink)

With the advent of the Human Genome Project there have been many claims for the genetic origins of complex human behavior including insanity, criminality, and intelligence. But what does it really mean to call something 'genetic'? This is the fundamental question that Sahotra Sarkar's book addresses. The author analyses the nature of reductionism in classical and molecular genetics. He shows that there are two radically different kinds of reductionist explanation: genetic reduction (as found in classical genetics) and physical reduction (...) (found in molecular genetics). This important book clarifies the meaning of the term 'genetic', shows how molecular studies have affected genetics, and provides the philosophical background necessary to understand the debates over the Human Genome Project. It will be of particular interest to professionals and students in the philosophy of science, the history of science, and the social studies of science, medicine, and technology. (shrink)

Let H n be the linear heptagonal networks with 2 n heptagons. We study the structure properties and the eigenvalues of the linear heptagonal networks. According to the Laplacian polynomial of H n, we utilize the method of decompositions. Thus, the Laplacian spectrum of H n is created by eigenvalues of a pair of matrices: L A and L S of order numbers 5 n + 1 and 4 n + 1 n! / r! n − r!, respectively. (...) On the basis of the roots and coefficients of their characteristic polynomials of L A and L S, we get not only the explicit forms of Kirchhoff index but also the corresponding total number of spanning trees of H n. (shrink)

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)

Reductionist forms of moral realism, such as naturalist realism, are often thought immune to epistemological objections that have been raised against nonnaturalist realism in the form of reliability worries or evolutionary debunking arguments. This article establishes that reductionist realist views can only explain the reliability of our moral beliefs at the cost of incurring repugnant first-order conclusions.

_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)

Causal reductionism is the widespread assumption that there is no room for additional causes once we have accounted for all elementary mechanisms within a system. Due to its intuitive appeal, causal reductionism is prevalent in neuroscience: once all neurons have been caused to fire or not to fire, it seems that causally there is nothing left to be accounted for. Here, we argue that these reductionist intuitions are based on an implicit, unexamined notion of causation that conflates causation (...) with prediction. By means of a simple model organism, we demonstrate that causal reductionism cannot provide a complete and coherent account of ‘what caused what’. To that end, we outline an explicit, operational approach to analyzing causal structures. (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)

This chapter investigates the prospects for an important position that falls under the "mere patterns" approach: what, for reasons that will emerge, the author calls"Humean reductionism" about laws of nature, a view championed perhaps most prominently by David Lewis. He reviews some of the most interesting arguments against this position from the literature, and adds some of his own that, he thinks, are more effective. The chapter considers how the best system account (BSA) would apply to the Newtonian particle (...) world. The BSA has been challenged in a wide variety of ways: it violates certain intuitions; It makes a hash out of the connection between laws on the one hand, and counterfactuals, explanation, and induction on the other. The author thinks that the problem he has raised‐challenging though he hopes it is, is really an occasion for the Humean reductionist to sharpen his position still further. (shrink)

Methodological reductionists practice ‘wannabe reductionism’. They claim that one should pursue reductionism, but never propose how. I integrate two strains in prior work to do so. Three kinds of activities are pursued as “reductionist”. “Successional reduction” and inter-level mechanistic explanation are legitimate and powerful strategies. Eliminativism is generally ill-conceived. Specific problem-solving heuristics for constructing inter-level mechanistic explanations show why and when they can provide powerful and fruitful tools and insights, but sometimes lead to erroneous results. I show how (...) traditional metaphysical approaches fail to engage how science is done. The methods used do so, and support a pragmatic and non-eliminativist realism. (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)

The contrast between the strategies of research employed in reductionism and holism masks a radical contradiction between two different scientific philosophies. We concentrate in particular on an analysis of the key philosophical issues which give structure to holistic thought. A first (non-exhaustive) analysis of the philosophical tradition will dwell upon: a) the theory of emergence: each level of organisation is characterised by properties whose laws cannot be deduced from the laws of the inferior levels of organisation (Engels, Morgan); b) (...) clarification of the relations between the “whole” and the “parts” (Woodger, Needham); c) the ontological or epistemological nature of the emergent properties; are they a phenomenological reality or solely an artefact of the state of our knowledge? (Pepper, Henle, Hempel and Oppenheim); d) the proposition of the holistic theoretical and methodological model ( Novikoff, Feibleman). I then go on to examine the differences that exist between the reductionist and the holistic approaches at various levels of analysis: that is to say, the differences which affect their ontologies, methodologies and epistemologies respectively. I attempt to understand the spirit of a holistic approach to ecology by analyzing the major work of E.P. Odum Fundamentals of ecology (1953, 1959, 1971). I set forward what might be meant by the “holistic approach”, which is implicated in all the different levels of organisation at which the problem of “complexity” is debated. Ecology presents itself as an “holistic science” and Odum’s book offers a vision of the world which dates far back in the history of philosophy. By looking at the three different editions of this fundamental text on ecology, we may become aware of the evolution of Odum’s thought. In fact, only in the third and last edition is there a conscious appropriation of the holistic approach (by using the theoretical models of Feibleman who, for his part, refers to Novikoff). However, even when formally referring to the theory of emergence (that is to say the ontological nucleus of every holistic approach), Odum’s systemic analysis presents the same logical errors, which push him back into the reductionist domain. Above all, in his examination of the main concepts of “population”, “community” and “ecosystem”, there is a misunderstanding of the profound difference between “collective properties” and “emergent properties”. Moreover, the cybernetic models of Odum’s systemic analysis (introduced into ecology by Margalef), allowed him to vastly oversimplify his methodological task: in fact, neither how many levels nor which levels of organization are fundamental for the study of each individual level is clearly marked. Finally, Odum analyses the ecosystem as composed of energetic flux and cycles of matter, referring to the trophic-dynamic vision of Lindeman. That is to say, in my opinion, he juxtaposes a reductionistic methodology and epistemology to an holistic ontology. (shrink)

After the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, scientists working in molecular biology embraced reductionism—the theory that all complex systems can be understood in terms of their components. Reductionism, however, has been widely resisted by both nonmolecular biologists and scientists working outside the field of biology. Many of these antireductionists, nevertheless, embrace the notion of physicalism—the idea that all biological processes are physical in nature. How, Alexander Rosenberg asks, can these self-proclaimed physicalists also be antireductionists? With (...) clarity and wit, Darwinian Reductionism navigates this difficult and seemingly intractable dualism with convincing analysis and timely evidence. In the spirit of the few distinguished biologists who accept reductionism—E. O. Wilson, Francis Crick, Jacques Monod, James Watson, and Richard Dawkins—Rosenberg provides a philosophically sophisticated defense of reductionism and applies it to molecular developmental biology and the theory of natural selection, ultimately proving that the physicalist must also be a reductionist. (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.

Nathan Salmon, in his paper Trans-World Identification and Stipulation (1996) purports to give a proof for the claim that facts concerning trans-world identity cannot be conceptually reduced to general facts. He calls this claim ‘Extreme Haecceitism.’ I argue that his proof is fallacious. However, I also contend that the analysis and ultimate rejection of his proof clarifies the fundamental issues that are at stake in the debate between the reductionist and haecceitist solutions to the problem of trans-world identity. These issues (...) hinge on the ability of modal logic and possible worlds semantics to draw a hard and fast distinction between the logic and the metaphysics of modal logic. I shall claim that the considerations in this paper call into question the viability of such a distinction. (shrink)

In recent years, a ''change in attitude'' in particle physics has led to our understanding current quantum field theories as effective field theories (EFTs). The present paper is concerned with the significance of this EFT approach, especially from the viewpoint of the debate on reductionism in science. In particular, I shall show how EFTs provide a new and interesting case study in current philosophical discussion on reduction, emergence, and inter-level relationships in general.

In recent years, a change in attitude in particle physics has led to our understanding current quantum field theories as effective field theories. The present paper is concerned with the significance of this EFT approach, especially from the viewpoint of the debate on reductionism in science. In particular, it is a purpose of this paper to clarify how EFTs may provide an interesting case-study in current philosophical discussion on reduction, emergence and inter-level relationships in general.

I consider a problem for functional reductionism, based on the following tension. Say that b is functionally reduced to a. On the one hand, a and b turn out to be identical, and identity is a symmetric relation. On the other hand, functional reductionism implies that a and b are asymmetrically related: if b is functionally reduced to a, then a is not functionally reduced to b. Thus, we ask: how can a and b be asymmetrically related if (...) they are the same thing? I propose a solution to this tension, by distinguishing between ontological levels and levels of description. (shrink)

Scientists have always attempted to explain the world in terms of a few unifying principles. In the fifth century B.C. Democritus boldly claimed that reality is simply a collection of indivisible and eternal parts or atoms. Over the centuries his doctrine has remained a landmark, and much progress in physics is due to its distinction between subjective perception and objective reality. This book discusses theory reduction in physics, which states that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its (...) parts: the properties of things are directly determined by their constituent parts. Reductionism deals with the relation between different theories that address different levels of reality, and uses extrapolations to apply that relation in different sciences. Reality shows a complex structure of connections, and the dream of a unified interpretation of all phenomena in several simple laws continues to attract anyone with genuine philosophical and scientific interests. If the most radical reductionist point of view is correct, the relationship between disciplines is strictly inclusive: chemistry becomes physics, biology becomes chemistry, and so on. Eventually, only one science, indeed just a single theory, would survive, with all others merging in the Theory of Everything. Is the current coexistence of different sciences a mere historical venture which will end when the Theory of Everything has been established? Can there be a unified description of nature? Rather than an analysis of full reductionism, this book focuses on aspects of theory reduction in physics and stimulates reflection on related questions: is there any evidence of actual reduction? Are the examples used in the philosophy of science too simplistic? What has been endangered by the search for (the) ultimate truth? Has the dream of reductionist reason created any monsters? Is big science one such monster? What is the point of embedding science Y within science X, if predictions cannot be made on that basis? (shrink)

Syntactic Reductionism, as understood here, is the view that the ‘logical forms’ of sentences in which reference to abstract objects appears to be made are misleading so that, on analysis, we can see that no expressions which even purport to refer to abstract objects are present in such sentences. After exploring the motivation for such a view, and arguing that no previous argument against it succeeds, sentences involving generalized quantifiers, such as ‘most’, are examined. It is then argued, on (...) this basis, that Syntactic Reductionism is untenable. (shrink)

Reductionists are those who take one theory or phenomenon to be reducible to some other theory or phenomenon. For example, a reductionist regarding mathematics might take any given mathematical theory to be reducible to logic or set theory. Or, a reductionist about biological entities like cells might take such entities to be reducible to collections of physico-chemical entities like atoms and molecules. The type of reductionism that is currently of most interest in metaphysics and philosophy of mind involves the (...) claim that all sciences are reducible to physics. This is usually taken to entail that all phenomena (including mental phenomena like consciousness) are identical to physical phenomena. The bulk of this article will discuss this latter understanding of reductionism. (shrink)

Husserl’s phenomenology is what is used, and then the conception of “bracketing reality” is modelled to generalize Peano arithmetic in its relation to set theory in the foundation of mathematics. The obtained model is equivalent to the generalization of Peano arithmetic by means of replacing the axiom of induction with that of transfinite induction. A comparison to Mach’s doctrine is used to be revealed the fundamental and philosophical reductionism of Husserl’s phenomenology leading to a kind of Pythagoreanism in the (...) final analysis. (shrink)

Multi-Task Learning tries to improve the learning process of different tasks by solving them simultaneously. A popular Multi-Task Learning formulation for SVM is to combine common and task-specific parts. Other approaches rely on using a Graph Laplacian regularizer. Here we propose a combination of these two approaches that can be applied to L1, L2 and LS-SVMs. We also propose an algorithm to iteratively learn the graph adjacency matrix used in the Laplacian regularization. We test our proposal with synthetic (...) and real problems, both in regression and classification settings. When the task structure is present, we show that our model is able to detect it, which leads to better results, and we also show it to be competitive even when this structure is not present. (shrink)

In the context of the free will debate, both compatibilists and event-causal libertarians consider that the agent’s mental states and events are what directly causes her decision to act. However, according to the ‘disappearing agent’ objection, if the agent is nothing over and above her physical and mental components, which ultimately bring about her decision, and that decision remains undetermined up to the moment when it is made, then it is a chancy and uncontrolled event. According to agent-causalism, this sort (...) of problem can be overcome if one realizes that the agent herself, as an irreducible substance, is the true originator of her actions. I’ll present arguments that favor this view. Event-causalists have countered that if the agent identifies with some of the inner states that play the self-determining causal role in bringing about the action, then it is as though the action was directly caused by herself. I’ll object that this is not a distinctive aspect of free agency. Agent-causalism has been criticized from most naturalistically inclined fronts, and it must address risks of implausibility, contradiction and unintelligibility. Even though I’ll acknowledge these challenges, I’ll still argue that libertarian free will cannot be defended by any reductionist alternative, and that agent-causalism does not conflict with contemporary science but only with some of its unproven assumptions. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse how researchers use the categories of race and ethnicity with reference to genetics and genomics. We show that there is still considerable conceptual “messiness” (despite the wide-ranging and popular debate on the subject) when it comes to the use of ethnoracial categories in genetics and genomics that among other things makes it difficult to properly compare and interpret research using ethnoracial categories, as well as draw conclusions from them. Finally, we briefly reconstruct some of the (...) biases of reductionism to which geneticists (as well as other researchers referring to genetic methods and explanations) are particularly exposed to, and we analyse the problem in the context of the biologization of ethnoracial categories. Our work constitutes a novel, in-depth contribution to the debate about reporting race and ethnicity in biomedical and health research. First, we reconstruct the theoretical background assumptions about racial ontology which researchers implicitly presume in their studies with the aid of a sample of recent papers published in medical journals about COVID-19. Secondly, we use the typology of the biases of reductionism to the problem of biologization of ethnoracial categories with reference to genetics and genomics. (shrink)

showing what makes causal facts both true and accessible enough for us to have the knowledge of them that we ordinarily take ourselves to have. Some current approaches to analyzing causation were once resisted. First, analyses that use the counterfactual conditional were viewed with suspicion because philosophers also sought (and still do seek) similar understanding of counterfactual facts. Since the same can be said for the other nomic concepts--causation, lawhood, explanation, chance, dispositions, and their conceptual kin--philosophy demonstrated a preference for (...) non-nomic definitions of causation, analytic completions of (S) with no nomic terms in the analysans. Recently, however, philosophers have been less demanding regarding what terms may be used. Attention has been given to analyzing causation in terms of chance, the counterfactual conditional, and lawhood. If we reserve the term ‘causal’ for the terms and concepts that have extremely obvious connections.. (shrink)

The paper raises some difficulties for the typical motivations behind set reductionism, the view that sets are reducible to entities identified independently of set theory.

In previous work, I defend the following disparity between moral and epistemic facts: whereas moral facts are irreducibly normative, epistemic facts – facts such as that some subject is epistemically justified in believing something – are reducible to facts from some other domain (such as facts about probabilities). This moral-epistemic disparity is significant because it undercuts an important kind of argument for robust moral realism. My defense of epistemic reductionism and of the moral-epistemic disparity has been criticized by Richard (...) Rowland (2013) and by Terence Cuneo and Christos Kyriacou (forthcoming). This paper aims to rebut these criticisms and, more generally, to clarify and strengthen the case for epistemic reductionism and the moral-epistemic disparity. (shrink)

In this paper, I clarify and defend a provocative hypothesis offered by Bernard Williams, namely, that modern people are much more likely to speak in terms of master-concepts like “good” or “right,” and correspondingly less likely to think and speak in the pluralistic terms favored by certain Ancient societies. By conducting a close reading of the Platonic dialogues Charmides and Laches, I show that the figure of Socrates plays a key historical role in this conceptual shift. Once we understand that (...) our narrow, reductionist focus on “thin” ethical concepts is a contingent historical development, we are, I claim, in a much better position to evaluate it. (shrink)

A critical review of Mark Siderits's arguments in support of a compatibilist Buddhist theory of free will based on early Abhidharma reductionism and the two-truths distinction between conventional and ultimate truths or reality, which theory he terms 'paleo-compatibilism'. The Buddhist two-truths doctrine is basically analogous to Sellers' distinction between the manifest and scientific images, in which case the argument is that determinism is a claim about ultimate reality, whereas personhood and agency are about conventional reality, both discourse domains are (...) semantically insulated, and thus there cannot be any issue of the incompatibility. (shrink)

Explanatory models in psychiatry reflect what clinicians deem valuable in rendering people's behavior intelligible and thus help guide treatment choices for mental illnesses. This article outlines some key scientific and ethical principles of clinical explanation in twenty-first century psychiatry. Recent work in philosophy of science, clinical psychiatry, and psychiatric ethics are critically reviewed in order to elucidate conceptual underpinnings of contemporary explanatory models. Many explanatory models in psychiatry are reductionistic or eclectic. The former restrict options for diagnostic and therapeutic paradigm (...) choice, while the latter lack a well-defined theoretical basis. These two methodological approaches stand in a dialectical relation to one another insofar as clinicians often move from one approach to its antithesis, ultimately seeking a synthesis of the two approaches that satisfies clinical needs. Pragmatic considerations can help to transcend the reductionism/eclecticism dialectic. In the absence of a completed science of mental disorders, psychiatrists must tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty as they strive to integrate diverse explanatory concepts in a rigorous and evidence-based fashion. A pragmatic explanatory model in clinical psychiatry must focus on favorable treatment outcomes for patients by respecting the pluralistic, participatory, and provisional nature of psychiatric explanation. (shrink)

A survey of arguments for and against the view that colors are physical properties.

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)

This paper's ?I examines Derek Parfit's main, metaphysical, argument for reductionism about personal identity. ?II considers three possible ethical arguments for reductionism, and suggests a new approach to the question of what matters about personal identity which has to do with the notion of an ethical narrative.

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)