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Questions tagged [reductionism]

47 questions
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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 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…
Sayaman
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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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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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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 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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What's the difference between "emergence" and "reductionism"?

Isn't a system, which emerged from simpler system also reducible to the simpler system? More general, is emergence the reverse term to reducitionism?
Bob
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Reductionism and Parmenides

Though I thought about it multiple times, I never understood Parmenides' argument for the impossibility of change. Now studying Aristotle's Physics, it popped up again and I still have the same problems – including with Aristotle's criticism of it,…
viuser
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Can a materialist accept indeterminism? Can a reductionist?

The usual argument against it is that if behavior of matter is not fully determined by its state then it has to be determined by something else, ergo dualism. This begs the question however, unless we insert determinism into the definition of matter…
Conifold
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Computational intractability and reductionism?

It seems straightforward to argue that if the variables of one physical (or biological) theory A are shown to be uncomputable (in the Turing sense) as a function of the variables of another physical theory B, and the Church-Turing thesis holds, then…
Alexander S King
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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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Under metaphysical naturalism, does everything boil down to Physics?

If metaphysical naturalism is true, would that mean that Physics is the ultimate discipline that can sufficiently explain everything, and that all other disciplines, including Chemistry, Biology, Cosmology, Geology, Neuroscience, Psychology,…
Mark
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How can complex material systems emerge in ways that allow them to transcend fundamental material structures?

One of the quandaries of reductionism from what I understand is how complex systems can emerge to overtake simple ones. This may sound convoluted, so bear with me as I try to explain. According to a standard materialist position, reality is…
natojato
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