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... is not great. Could do with a significant rewrite to describe reductionism more plainly and in terms someone who has not done Phil 101 (and ... er only Phil 101) could understand. ElectricRay ( talk) 15:21, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
Hi Lee, since you ask for feedback--where does the list of kinds of reductionism comes from? Philosophers refer to lots of different kinds of reductionism, especially in relation to the mental phenomena, value, biological phenomena, social phenomena, etc., but there isn't any such generally agreed upon list of "kinds of reductionism" that I am aware of. (That doesn't mean that such a list doesn't exist, but I'm skeptical.) It would be more helpful, instead, to elaborate some particular theory that is said to be an example of reductionism, or to elaborate some philosopher's general characterization of reductionism. (Philosophers obviously don't agree about what reductionism is with regard to any domain--my impression is that a lot of the debate over the merits of reductionism turns precisely on the question of what it is.) In particular, I don't immediately get the difference between methodological, scientific, and theoretical reductionism. It would help a lot if this terminology were attributed to actual philosophers. -- Larry Sanger
I see at least two kinds of reductionism in science. One is reductionism as a method of research (maybe a more apt/less loaded term would be "analysis"?). The success of the method cannot be denied and the fact that reductionism works is a nontrivial statement about the world. The other is the result of elevating the research method to a worldview. Does a discussion of these ideas belong in this article, or somewhere else. Also, I don't think I can provide a lot of references for this. -- Miguel
Well, I'd say that reductionism is clearly a topic in philosophy. It's possibly also (I guess I don't know) a topic of philosophical reflection by scientists (in a tradition of theorizing separate from philosophical reflection about science by philosophers). If scientists do use the term "reductionism" in ways that are culturally important (as opposed to just occasionally making off-the-cuff remarks that reflect what they read when they were reading some philosophy of science written by philosophers), then the ideal encyclopedia article about reductionism would include information about how scientists use the term. (Whether that discussion belongs on scientific reductionism I don't know; that depends on whether scientists call the reductionism they champion "scientific reductionism," which I would doubt. Maybe the discussion would be better placed on reductionism in science or even scientists' views on reductionism. The reductionism article certainly should include a lot of information about how philosophers use the term.
As to whether you should put two name and describe two different senses of "reductionism" in the article, I would say that depends entirely upon whether you're making up words to describe phenomena (about the scientific community) you observe, or instead reporting how others have described such phenomena. If you're making up words, then you're essentially doing original research which (I would say) doesn't have a place in an encyclopedia. If you're reporting some distinction that you've read in textbooks, for example, that would be another matter entirely. In such a case, the ideal article would attribute the distinction to whatever seminal sources are responsible for making it. -- Larry Sanger
I have a question for Lee, Larry, and others who have been working on this article. My question concerns the relationshionship between reductionism and explanation, rathe than types of reductionisms (although I might suggest that one type of reductionism may have more than one function). In short, I question whether the purpose of reduction is to "explain" things. I guess this really hinges on how you define explain, so perhaps I am simply asking that the contributers to this article explain what they mean by "explain."
In A Brief History of time Stephen Hawking defines a theory as a model of the universe or some part of the universe, and a set of rules that allow us to relate quantities in the model to our observations of the real world. Now, I imagine there are other good and maybe even more popular definitions of theory, but I think Hawking is well-enough known and admired that this definition is acceptable. In any event, I am introducing it not as an example of a definition of a theory, but as a case of reductionism for in describing theories as models, Hawking seems to be taking a generally reductionbism view.
But, my question is, do such reductions (as those theories of physics that he describes) really "explain" things? I do not think they do, at least not in the common sense of a prior action that determines a consequent action. On the contrary, it seems to me that all such models do is describe how certain kinds of events may determine other kinds of events. It seems to me that the real stregnth of such theories is not that they explain, but that they reveal that different events can all be described in the same language, i.e. that the orbit of the moon and an apple falling off a tree obey the same law of gravity. But this does not mee that the apple falls "because" of the theory of gravity; the theory of gravity merely describes the relationships of bodies with mass that allow us to predict future events. Is this realy "explanation?"
If it is "explanation," all I can say is, it is not explanation in the sense that I think most English speakers mean, and so the article should be clear about the meaning. SR
If "reductionism" generally is to be defined in terms of explanation, it can't be just causal explanation; it would also have to be explanation of meaning, or semantic explanation.
A more complete article on the subject would certainly make a big to do about how reduction might or might not be considered to be a variety of explanation. Often, reduction is portrayed as elimination; so, for example, if I try to reduce mental events to brain events, some people naturally react not as if I had tried to explain what mental events are (an ontological explanation) or how they occur (causal explanation), but tried to eliminate the need to talk about mental events at all, in favor of talk about brain events. -- Larry Sanger
I'm removing the italicized portion of the following:
This seems problematic, because it implies that there is no such thing as a "non-scientific explanation". Is that really what is meant?
Also, is it part of "scientific reductionism" to deny the reality of that which cannot be reduced to science? If so, maybe this should be clarified here. -- Ryguasu
I'm curious: Daniel Dennett talks about "greedy reductionism". Does anyone talk about "greedy holism"? If I were to define that term, it would mean something along the lines of "understanding the whole has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding its parts." Although it would probably be hard to find someone who would actually espouse such an extreme position, I think one could certainly accuse some people (perhaps even mainstream sociology) of having strong tendencies in that direction. -- Ryguasu 16:45 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
Reply to
Ryguasu (above)
Some people use the word
emergence when they make claims such as: "understanding the whole has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding its parts," particularly in a context such as, "you cannot explain consciousness by reductionism because consciousness is emergent."
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a good summary of use of the term "emergent" within philosophy.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/
If you compare the Stanford Encyclopedia entry to the Wikipedia entry for emergence, you will see that the Wikipedia version is too simplistic.
I am surprised that there is no entry yet for
holism. I have always had a problem with the term "holism" because it seems to get hijacked by people who have an anti-reductionism agenda.
For example:
"Holism, stands in stark opposition to the method of reductionism, which holds that analysis, dissection, and strict definition are the tools for understanding reality. Holism asserts that phenomena can never be fully understood in isolation; it asserts that reductionism can only give us a partial view of anything it dissects."
http://www.neat.tas.edu.au/HENT/glossary.htm
I usually like to tell people that I take a holistic approach to my reductionism. I see nothing paradoxical about this. We reduce complex systems to their componenents then we must construct a holistic view of how the components interact to produce the whole system. I think holism and reductionism should go hand-in-hand not be viewed as being in "stark opposition". I have similar problems with the term "emergent" which I have discussed here:
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8870/books/AScott2.html
JWSchmidt 04:08 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)
---
I have a question regarding the article - why on earth should you throw Stephen Gould out of a window ??
Steven Weinberg wrote an essay called 'two cheers for reductionism'. Perhaps worth mentioning?
It's several years since I've read Robert Laughlin's A Different Universe but what I recall of it seems both relevant and surprisingly neglected in this discussion. He points out that there are many scientific 'explanations,' satisfactorily embodied in formulae, that describe systems behaviour while making no claim to understand the systems' components (gas laws would be a typical example). Furthermore, the behaviour frequently turns out to be compatible with a wide range of underlying phenomena, which strongly suggests that attempts to understand the systems' organizing principles by means of analyzing the systems' constituents are misguided. He doesn't mean to undermine reductionism entirely with this kind of observation, just to alert us to the fact that reductionism, like all things, has its limits and becomes counter-productive when asked to exceed them.—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
205.189.194.204 (
talk) 28 April 2011
I'm a bit confused about the "emergence disproving reductionism" part. Maybe some summary on the notion would help? I mean, certainly it isn't argued that emergence is where something is more than the sum of its parts. Does anyone really believe that? It would make *much* more sense for someone to argue that if simpler parts inexplicably result in a more advanced whole than is predicted then the simpler parts' values were miscalculated. Of course, this is just my opinion, but certainly there aren't scientists, (supposedly) the fonts of all that is logical and sound, who would believe otherwise? Where are the sources to this claim?
Generally, people who speak about emergence do mean that there are systems for which the complete correct knowledge about the parts does not offer complete correct knowledge about the system, and some of these people are scientists, or mathematicians. The analysis of complex systems is to do with this. Complex systems are said (although afaik not yet proven) to be impossible to understand analytically. In other words, one can't work, by maths, from the description of the rules of a complex system, a script on how it will behave. Cellular automata with very simple rules and turing-complete behaviour make a good case. Eulen 13:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
[Update, just saw this:]
"I usually like to tell people that I take a holistic approach to my reductionism. I see nothing paradoxical about this. We reduce complex systems to their componenents then we must construct a holistic view of how the components interact to produce the whole system. I think holism and reductionism should go hand-in-hand not be viewed as being in "stark opposition"."
It is indeed true that people can have varying levels of reductionism, and they can reduce systems to certain levels where holistic approaches are then taken. However, if absolute reductionism is not taken, it could be posited that the "best" semi-reductionist method would be to reduce the system of components, or "forms" as I like to call them, to a level of holism where these forms are defined by how they are most logically and naturally perceived. The logicality and naturalness could only be determined if the holistic concepts of "logicality" and "naturalness" were defined, of course, but presumably definitions that satisfy the basal needs of the terms, such as "that which coincides with the natural order of nature" for "logicality", could be found. As you may have noticed, this method of defining the concept of "logicality" is, paradoxically, based on "logicality". But despite being paradoxical, it still works.
ps. sorry about the excessive updates, i'm getting used to this discussion thing.
Should some examples of arguments against reductionism (or links to such arguments) be included? Multiple realizability etc.? (Anon)
Holism advocates that complex systems may possess collective properties which differ from the cumilative sum of individual component properties. The idea is that you cannot produce the whole system through constructing a model based on how individual components behave and interact, and that you can only understand the whole through observing the whole. In this respect, holism contrasts with reductionism. This is especially true of living systems. An example of this is Gaia theory, which brings to light the self-organising properties of the ecosphere, properties which only become apparent when the system is viewed as a whole.
Reductionism should link to systemic thinking. See the work of Peter Senge and Gregory Bateson for further reference. This ideology draws attention to the idea that reductionism, i.e. the isolation and analysis of individual components, gives limited insight into the way in which components relate and interact both with each other and with the systems in which they participate. Furthermore, surely the sentence "But it cannot be understand from such principles as elementary particle physics or superstring theory." should read "But it cannot be understood from such principles as elementary particle physics or superstring theory."
Alzclarke 23:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Reductionism claims that (natural) phenomena can be reduced to the result of interactions between their elementary building blocks within an all-embracing consistent theory that describe the nature of these interactions. Ultimately, this should lead to a "Theory of everything". A reductionist is satisfied if he can explain a natural phenomenon as the result of a known interaction between different building blocks with their specific characteristics.
Emergentists claim that this is not always possible because there are many phenomena with properties that are completely different from those of their elementary building blocks, and that cannot be deduced from them either. For example, an atom has completely different properties than those of its building blocks: electrons, protons and neutrons. An entirely new theory even had to be designed (Bohr's atomic model, the first major success of quantum mechanics) to be able to interpret the atom as a phenomenon. Emergentists, therefore, claim that there cannot be a comprehensive, consistent theory of nature because new emergent phenomena occur at every level of scale, which in themselves can be explained but which are not the obvious result of the interaction between its elementary building blocks.
A simple example for illustration:
The creation and resolution of a traffic jam on a highway can be easily explained and simulated by a computer program. The interaction between those cars depends on the speed and the minimum distance between the cars themselves. The (weak) emergent phenomenon that occurs here is that of a retrorade longitudinal wave. This phenomenon is a characteristic of the collective, not of the individual cars, and is therfore an emergent phenomenon. However, "hard" reductionists will say that this phenomenon can easily be explained by the collective interactions between the cars. The pattern that emerges from this (the longitudinal wave) is a purely subjective assessment based on our knowledge and namegiving of that pattern. This reasoning can be applied to all so-called "weak" emergent phenomena such as: starling a flight, a school of fish, a water vortex, panic in a crowd, the movement of stars in a spiral system, entropy (in the sense of disorder), the so-called Game of Life of Conway.
However, this hard reductionism fails in the case of "strong" emergence such as in the above-mentioned "Bohr" atom model, the result of a chemical reaction, crystal formation, a mutation in the DNA, artefacts, etc. In those cases, the emergent phenomenon has new and special properties that cannot be deduced from the properties of the individual building blocks.
More and more physicists (f.i. Piers Coleman, Klaas Landsman) regard emergentism and reductionism not as contradictory but as complementary. Ypan1944 ( talk) 15:43, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
Question: What if emergent phenomena modulate the behavior of components at a lower, more reduced level?
Would this view be compatible with a reductionist perspective on emergent phenomena, or would it challenge reductionism? I'm thinking in terms of biological systems, in case that helps clarify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.72.192.69 ( talk) 16:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I removed this:
"In short, it is philosophical materialism taken to its logical consequences."
You can be a reductionist without materialism, e.g. a radical empiricsist would claim that all states of affairs, objectcs, things, etc. are reducible to sense-data, regardless of truthvalues necessary for materialism.
Then there is phenomenological reductionism, and Marxist historical materialism is reductionism but a materialism of quite different sort.
(M)
The first of these are commonly accepted but the last step is controversial and therefore the frontier of reductionism: evolutionary -psychology and -sociology vs. those who claim people have a soul or another quality that separates them from the material world.
This seems to imply that either you subscribe to evolutionary psychology and sociology or you believe in a soul or some other supernatural phenomenon. There are many intelligent materialists who are deeply critical of evolutionary psychology and sociology - the late Stephen Jay Gould (unceremoniously defenestrated in another passage of the article) was one. Spiritual explanations are only one kind of counter to reductionist thought, and not in my view the most obvious or important. Breffni-- 134.226.1.194 00:17, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Why throw Jay Gould out of the window? Surely it's just rude unless you explain why it's relevant. 131.111.8.98 12:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
The religious stance hadn't been mentioned,so it can't be a "redescription". These additions are not anti-reductionist, just a framing of the debate. Plz use Talk....
I find the use of the word "item" synonymously with "thing" to be stultified, distracting, and often strictly erroneous. Where things (particulars, articles, instances, etc.) appear among similar things, as in a class (category, list, itemization, etc.), it may be appropriate, depending on one's intention, to identify them as items. But without such an intention or context, "item" is a poor choice of wording. Instead of carrying the broad connotation needed in many of the statements in this discussion, it seems to imply the indication of a specific member of a (presumably finite and known) group. (--Marshall Price, d021317c, October 6, 2006, 10:25 am, EDT)
By coincidence, I just discovered, by way of "Arts and Letters Daily" (www.aldaily.com), an article by the former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Burton Richter, in which he uses "reductionist" not as identifying a theory, but as a "trend" and "direction" on paths to understanding. He distinguishes it from "what appear to me to be empty concepts like naturalness, the anthropic principle, and the landscape" (of theorizing, I think). The article appeared in the October 2006 issue of "Physics Today", and is available as a PDF download. I found it inspired, inspiring, and brilliantly written. It reveals a few crucial facts about the history of theoretical physics which had escaped me before, the learning of which has been quite rewarding. (As an aside, I wonder whether the technology and practice of putting a piano together, regulating it, and tuning it, should be considered constituent parts of the piano.) (--Marshall Price, d021317c, October 6, 2006, 12:20 pm, EDT)
Methodological reductionism is the idea that explanations of things, such as scientific explanations, ought to be continually reduced to the very simplest entities possible (but no simpler). Occam's Razor forms the basis of this type of reductionism.
As far as I can ascertain this is incorrect. Occam's Razor is a preference for simplicity when dealing with "equivalent" theories. I can not see any direct bearing this has on Methodological Reductionism, which is the view that "An understanding of a complex system is best sought at the level of the structure and behavior of its component parts." [2] However, Methodological Reductionism redirects to Occam's Razor. I have thus not edited the article yet, pending further discussion. -- Nappyrash 10:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I have edited the entry for Methodical Reductionism, I think it is now more accurate. Nappyrash 03:33, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the following passage:
There is some truth in the above, but it's so badly muddled that I don't see how to fix it. Point by point:
The ideas might well merit inclusion in the reductionism article, if sourced and explained clearly, but I can find nothing worth saving in the existing text, and I don't have a reference talking about "set-theoretic reductionism" that would enable me to write alternative text. -- Trovatore 08:23, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I think that we should add back the material on set theory. It seems highly relevant to reductionism. Perhaps we could come up with a more balanced viewpoint, and more sources? Cazort ( talk) 19:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
This article seems very inaccurate and misleading to me. Some thoughts: is reductionism a "theory"? Not really in the scientific sense because it cannot be invalidated...rather it seems to be an approach, a principle, a guideline, something of the sort. Also, the "Criticisms" section seems misnamed...it's not so much a question of whether or not reductionism is "correct"...but rather, the question of its scope--what types of systems are appropriate for reductionist thinking/study, and what types are not. The controversy/criticism always stems from application of reductionism to a particular system or field of study. I also find the introductory paragraph discussing unity of science to be pretty problematic. I recommend scrapping it...unless...does anyone see a way to salvage it? It seems very POV, more than a bit arbitrary, and I can see people objecting to it on so many counts. Cazort 20:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I changed "Criticisms of Reductionism" to "Limits to Reductionism"; I don't think anyone dismisses reductionism entirely which is why I think the old heading was misleading. Cazort 23:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I was reading this article and found the term "limits to reductionism" a bit too... final, if you will, for I believe that many people believe that there are not, in fact, any limits to reductionism and that these so-called "limits" are nothing more than superficial. Not that I'm one of these people, of course... but I think that maybe if you said something like "proposed limits to reductionism" or even if you reverted back to "criticisms" it may be better, maybe? Good article, by the way: it may have some problems, but it has a lot less than it could have had for such a controversial subject!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.3.116.34 ( talk) 14:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I deleted the Richard H. Jones source, and all the material associated with it. I feel that this rather extreme action requires some justification and explanation. I know this is a subjective judgment, but I got hold of the book and read it and I found it to be extremely lacking in terms of quality of scholarship and content, and not really suitable as a valid source. If someone wants to dispute this, I'm open to discussion, but I think one would need some sort of verification that that source is indeed accepted as legitimate by others in the field, and honestly I would be very surprised if that were the case. Cazort ( talk) 00:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Response. That is surprising. My assessment is just the opposite. I found the book to be very helpful. I only skimmed the chapters on social science and religion because I am not as interested in those topics, but the chapters on philosophy and science are what I am interested in and I read those chapters carefully. I know something about those topics and I found the scholarship and argumentation to be solid. Perhaps because it is a general work and not for specialists in philosophy of mind or philosophy of science that Cazort did not like it. But for the general reader I would highly recommend it. I restored a citation to the book for the general reader, but the wikipedia being what it is Cazort is free to delete it. -- William Ryan.
Response. I just finished reading Jones' new book Analysis and the Fullness of Reality and found it to be an excellent introduction to the subject, bringing together all the fields and showing the state of reductionism and emergence today. -- William Ryan. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Shankara1000 (
talk •
contribs) 13:21, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
The idea of reductionism was introduced citation needed by Descartes in Part V of his Discourses (1637). Descartes argued the world was like a machine, its pieces like clockwork mechanisms, and that the machine could be understood by taking its pieces apart, studying them, and then putting them back together to see the larger picture. Descartes was a full mechanist, but only because he did not accept the conservation of direction of motions of small things in a machine, including an organic machine. Newton's theory required such conservation for inorganic things at least. When such conservation was accepted for organisms as well as inorganic objects by the middle of the 20th century, no organic mechanism could easily, if at all, be a Cartesian mechanism. citation needed
It's not clear that this is actually reductionism at all, and I don't think it is. It's more of an example of a determinist theory. I'm going to add the stuff from my philosophy book real quick. ImperfectlyInformed | { talk - contribs} 05:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
this article implies that all the greatest minds and philosophers consider that Reductionism is a wonderful thing. this simply isn't true and it would be nice if somebody could review this and make it less like and ideological advertisement —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.56.5.180 ( talk) 22:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Does this qualify? "In decision theory, a nonlinear utility function for a quantity such as money can create a situation in which all relevant decisions to be made in a given time period must to be considered simultaneously in order to maximize utility, if all relevant decisions act on utility only through this quantity." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.225.36 ( talk) 07:22, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I think having a link to the abstraction page, or some kind of explanation of how reductionism works as an abstraction process could make the article a little more clear. Any opinions on this? 129.12.200.50 ( talk) 00:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)Kentuser
This could be extremely useful in this article.
Main Entry: Oc·cam's razor Variant(s): also Ock·ham's razor \ˈä-kəmz-\ Function: noun Etymology: William of Occam Date: circa 1837
I edited the ontological reduction section. I don't think my edit is "original" research, its just very straightforwardly cleaning up the sentence logically. I don't believe the edit would be controversial but this note is just to prevent a knee-jerk revision... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.58.61 ( talk) 02:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
Pertaining to the following;
"As an alternative to set theory, others have argued for category theory as a foundation for certain aspects of mathematics."
This is completely wrong. While it is true that standard ZFC set theory cannot attain some aspects of category theory, category theory is in no way an alternative to set theory. Tarski–Grothendieck set theory can be used as the foundations of category theory. Metamath has a whole spiel about it here; http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/ax-groth.html
I suggest removing the sentence, and perhaps mentioning TG set theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.141.190 ( talk) 05:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
I proposed that this article be merged with Reduction (philosophy). See Here for a discussion of the possible merge.-- Foobarnix ( talk) 22:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Section 1.3 and section 3 have the same title (Ontological reductionism). They should be reduced to one. - Armin B. Wagner ( talk) 13:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
The article on Reductionism as well as the article on Reduction (philosophy) state that ontological reductionism is "the belief that reality is composed of a minimum number of kinds of entities or substances", a claim which is "usually metaphysical". A short explanation would be appropriate. - Armin B. Wagner ( talk) 13:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
I think fragmentalism and reductionism cover the same ground. Throughout most of the former article, it's made clear that "fragmentalism" is a pejorative term for reductionism. Since Wikipedia articles are about things, not words, having two separate articles is a form of content forkery. I could be misunderstanding the issue, though. If the cognitive psychology meaning is clarified, only a partial merger may be necessary. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 18:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Done. Nice job, Neelix. —
Ƶ§œš¹
[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Likewise, anatomists contend that the human body consists of skeleton, muscles, organs, blood vessels, nerves, etc. Holistically, this is merely an abbreviated and hugely simplified model that only partly corresponds to a real human body, which is anatomically a much more complex structure than that. A fragmentalist view of the human body would not necessarily contend that the body is composed of muscles, bones, etc but that the apparent view of individual organs and tissues is truly real and that each organ truly is a discrete entity in its own right. In truth, that is an incorrect oversimplification because no organ or tissue in the body exists separately from all others or from the whole body itself.
The chemical analysis of seawater is a good example of reductionism, but by contrast, a fragmentalist view would hold that seawater really is composed of nothing more than a bunch of sulphates and chlorides and that seawater truly is composed of nothing more than that. I doubt a reductionist would make such a claim because they (should) know that their approach is just a method, and their model is but a simplification of a complex system not to be taken too literally. Likewise, a reductionist approach to anatomy is aware that the body is more than a collection of parts, while a fragmentalist would hold that it truly is composed just of parts. In these senses the two are clearly very different positions.
Reductionism is thus more of a method for simplifying the world into cause and effect mechanisms, while fragmentalism is more of a belief about how the world is actually constructed. You can argue that fragmentalism is a conceptual product of an excessive use of and reliance upon the reductionist method. You can argue that the habitual use of reductionism naturally leads to a fragmentalist belief system. In that respect, the two go hand in hand. Therefore, although the two terms are close and appear to cover the same ground, they are subtly different in that one is merely a shortcut method of describing things, while the other is a viewpoint, a belief that complex things really do consist only of simpler parts.
The main problems with reductionism arise from its failure to take into account the wider picture of a field of inquiry. It looks at the pieces and fails to reassemble them into a whole. This was the basis of Rachel Carson's critique of the impact pesticides were having in the early 1960s. Pesticides target unwanted parts of nature--weeds, pests, insects--while ignoring the possible impacts those chemicals can have on other parts of nature such as beneficial insects, soil organisms, aquatic systems, human food chains, etc.
Persistent use of reductionism can then lead to a fragmentalist view, a type of tunnel vision that contends that our world truly is composed of parts that can be regarded as separate entities.
The problem with fragmentalism is that the world is not actually composed of parts at all but that this is just a product of our perception and of the words we use to describe things. Rocks, minerals, seawater, soil and the atmosphere are all in truth complex natural materials that cannot be fully broken down into truly existent parts. In absolute terms, fragmentalism is thus a convenient but a false view of reality. Likewise, a living organism is not truly composed of parts; that is just a way of seeing it and describing it. The tongue or cheek does not exist separate from the mouth or face; in reality, all the parts blend into each other and do not have a separate existence as discrete entities in their own right. In this respect, reductionism is a false method and fragmentalism is a false view of complex things.
In essence, therefore, reductionism is a method of enquiry that reduces complex things into simpler models, while fragmentalism is a belief that the world is actually composed of parts. One is a method and the other is a belief system. I hope that clarifies why I think the two articles should remain separate. The fragmentalism article ideally needs more depth and detail and more citations to illustrate the above points. Apologies fo length. Peter morrell 19:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Whatever the meaning of "Fragmentalism" may be (I assume that Peter Morell can provide a number of quotations from the literature) I am sure that the dispute cannot just be about the question whether you call that what something is composed of its "parts" or its "wholes". It should also be really clear that "Reductionism" does not simply refer to some analytic method. The reductionism article should clearly cover the various connotations of the term, regardless of what some other term might mean, and quite some work needs to be done, so Neelix could just go on and do it (again, regardless of some notion of "Fragmentalism"). Peter Morell should produce references to and quotations from the literature on fragmentalism, so that it can be seen that it actually is a term with some meaning that is not synonymous with "reductionism" which would justify a seperate article. 㓟 ( talk) 09:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
I just found editation 12 November 2007 ( User:Cazort) with link to ref.
Is this NPOV? Source says e.g. "You cannot have organisms whose internal functioning flouts the rules of physics and chemistry.".
I'm a bit familiar with Engineering cybernetics, Control theory (see Modern control theory and Controllability and observability paragraphs), State space representation and this flavour of cybernetics is IMHO reductionist (not non-reductionist). -- mj41 ( talk) 22:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
In this edit Anonymous user 173.228.46.246 attached a rewrite tag to the article without any guidance on the Talk page. In this edit Sunrise moved the tag to the top of the page without further comment. IMO, if this tag is to mean something, it needs to be clarified on this Talk page just what the objections are. I have therefore removed this tag. Brews ohare ( talk) 16:26, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree the tag is spurious ---- Snowded TALK 13:18, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure that a Philosophy of Biology by a single author can be used to justify a general statement about extreme (itself a judgement mental phrase)) and non-extreme versions. We need something that addresses Philosophy a a whole to justify that type of change to the lede---- Snowded TALK 19:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Below is an extended quotation from Godfrey-Smith's Philosophy of Biology, which can be read first-hand using Amazons's look-inside feature:
I have placed this excerpt here for the benefit of Snowded, who suspects the quote in the Intro was taken out of context. Brews ohare ( talk) 23:23, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Well, I agree with Brews about the sources. On the other hand, I agree with Snowded that Brews' statement that "[c]onsensus has nothing to do with it" is absolutely wrong. Frenchmalawi ( talk) 14:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
When I checked the 'meta sources' they do not support the distinction implied in Brew's recent changes. Honderich (which is the most recent one I have access to) basically says it is one of the most used and abused terms used in Philosophy. He then makes a three part division between Ontological, Methodological and Theory based reductionism. Blackburn again does not make a strong/weak distinction and generally supports Honderich with some useful examples of how reductionism manifests itself in philosophy. My feeling is that summarising these two sources which talk about the field as a whole would be the best way to revise the lede. Comments? ---- Snowded TALK 06:53, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
User:Brews ohare and User:Snowded: this is the sort of interaction that I commend you both on. Teasing things out and improving the article. I hate the idea of either of you being blocked off Wikipedia or something like that. WP is the looser when that happens. Frenchmalawi ( talk) 14:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I've reordered subsections, put headers of same construction at the same level. However this article is a mess. Brews ohare ( talk) 18:57, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
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The sentence:
[...] that form of reductionism concerning a program of replacing the facts or entities entering statements claimed to be true in one type of discourse with other facts or entities from another type, [...]
To me this sentence seams as if the writer had insufficient knowledge of english. This implies, that this article may, in part or in full, be a bad translation from another language. Strikefinger ( talk) 21:48, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 August 2022 and 4 September 2022. Further details are available
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article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Sunsh1n3d011 ( talk) 07:03, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I've removed a good chunk of the content of this page as it was both poorly cited and not actually about the subject of the article. I still think we should have a criticism section that discusses ideas like emergence, and why some people who study complex systems, ecology, etc. oppose "reductionist" views but it shouldn't bleed into the descriptions of the different kinds of reductionism! Since there was so much content on emergence and holism, I erred on the side of removing content not supported by high-quality secondary sources, if anyone wants to source it better and add it into the criticism section I think that's fine but we don't need in-depth explanations - there's plenty of pages on those topics that can and should be linked to rather than re-hashing that material here. - car chasm ( talk) 16:19, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
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... is not great. Could do with a significant rewrite to describe reductionism more plainly and in terms someone who has not done Phil 101 (and ... er only Phil 101) could understand. ElectricRay ( talk) 15:21, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
Hi Lee, since you ask for feedback--where does the list of kinds of reductionism comes from? Philosophers refer to lots of different kinds of reductionism, especially in relation to the mental phenomena, value, biological phenomena, social phenomena, etc., but there isn't any such generally agreed upon list of "kinds of reductionism" that I am aware of. (That doesn't mean that such a list doesn't exist, but I'm skeptical.) It would be more helpful, instead, to elaborate some particular theory that is said to be an example of reductionism, or to elaborate some philosopher's general characterization of reductionism. (Philosophers obviously don't agree about what reductionism is with regard to any domain--my impression is that a lot of the debate over the merits of reductionism turns precisely on the question of what it is.) In particular, I don't immediately get the difference between methodological, scientific, and theoretical reductionism. It would help a lot if this terminology were attributed to actual philosophers. -- Larry Sanger
I see at least two kinds of reductionism in science. One is reductionism as a method of research (maybe a more apt/less loaded term would be "analysis"?). The success of the method cannot be denied and the fact that reductionism works is a nontrivial statement about the world. The other is the result of elevating the research method to a worldview. Does a discussion of these ideas belong in this article, or somewhere else. Also, I don't think I can provide a lot of references for this. -- Miguel
Well, I'd say that reductionism is clearly a topic in philosophy. It's possibly also (I guess I don't know) a topic of philosophical reflection by scientists (in a tradition of theorizing separate from philosophical reflection about science by philosophers). If scientists do use the term "reductionism" in ways that are culturally important (as opposed to just occasionally making off-the-cuff remarks that reflect what they read when they were reading some philosophy of science written by philosophers), then the ideal encyclopedia article about reductionism would include information about how scientists use the term. (Whether that discussion belongs on scientific reductionism I don't know; that depends on whether scientists call the reductionism they champion "scientific reductionism," which I would doubt. Maybe the discussion would be better placed on reductionism in science or even scientists' views on reductionism. The reductionism article certainly should include a lot of information about how philosophers use the term.
As to whether you should put two name and describe two different senses of "reductionism" in the article, I would say that depends entirely upon whether you're making up words to describe phenomena (about the scientific community) you observe, or instead reporting how others have described such phenomena. If you're making up words, then you're essentially doing original research which (I would say) doesn't have a place in an encyclopedia. If you're reporting some distinction that you've read in textbooks, for example, that would be another matter entirely. In such a case, the ideal article would attribute the distinction to whatever seminal sources are responsible for making it. -- Larry Sanger
I have a question for Lee, Larry, and others who have been working on this article. My question concerns the relationshionship between reductionism and explanation, rathe than types of reductionisms (although I might suggest that one type of reductionism may have more than one function). In short, I question whether the purpose of reduction is to "explain" things. I guess this really hinges on how you define explain, so perhaps I am simply asking that the contributers to this article explain what they mean by "explain."
In A Brief History of time Stephen Hawking defines a theory as a model of the universe or some part of the universe, and a set of rules that allow us to relate quantities in the model to our observations of the real world. Now, I imagine there are other good and maybe even more popular definitions of theory, but I think Hawking is well-enough known and admired that this definition is acceptable. In any event, I am introducing it not as an example of a definition of a theory, but as a case of reductionism for in describing theories as models, Hawking seems to be taking a generally reductionbism view.
But, my question is, do such reductions (as those theories of physics that he describes) really "explain" things? I do not think they do, at least not in the common sense of a prior action that determines a consequent action. On the contrary, it seems to me that all such models do is describe how certain kinds of events may determine other kinds of events. It seems to me that the real stregnth of such theories is not that they explain, but that they reveal that different events can all be described in the same language, i.e. that the orbit of the moon and an apple falling off a tree obey the same law of gravity. But this does not mee that the apple falls "because" of the theory of gravity; the theory of gravity merely describes the relationships of bodies with mass that allow us to predict future events. Is this realy "explanation?"
If it is "explanation," all I can say is, it is not explanation in the sense that I think most English speakers mean, and so the article should be clear about the meaning. SR
If "reductionism" generally is to be defined in terms of explanation, it can't be just causal explanation; it would also have to be explanation of meaning, or semantic explanation.
A more complete article on the subject would certainly make a big to do about how reduction might or might not be considered to be a variety of explanation. Often, reduction is portrayed as elimination; so, for example, if I try to reduce mental events to brain events, some people naturally react not as if I had tried to explain what mental events are (an ontological explanation) or how they occur (causal explanation), but tried to eliminate the need to talk about mental events at all, in favor of talk about brain events. -- Larry Sanger
I'm removing the italicized portion of the following:
This seems problematic, because it implies that there is no such thing as a "non-scientific explanation". Is that really what is meant?
Also, is it part of "scientific reductionism" to deny the reality of that which cannot be reduced to science? If so, maybe this should be clarified here. -- Ryguasu
I'm curious: Daniel Dennett talks about "greedy reductionism". Does anyone talk about "greedy holism"? If I were to define that term, it would mean something along the lines of "understanding the whole has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding its parts." Although it would probably be hard to find someone who would actually espouse such an extreme position, I think one could certainly accuse some people (perhaps even mainstream sociology) of having strong tendencies in that direction. -- Ryguasu 16:45 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
Reply to
Ryguasu (above)
Some people use the word
emergence when they make claims such as: "understanding the whole has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding its parts," particularly in a context such as, "you cannot explain consciousness by reductionism because consciousness is emergent."
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a good summary of use of the term "emergent" within philosophy.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/
If you compare the Stanford Encyclopedia entry to the Wikipedia entry for emergence, you will see that the Wikipedia version is too simplistic.
I am surprised that there is no entry yet for
holism. I have always had a problem with the term "holism" because it seems to get hijacked by people who have an anti-reductionism agenda.
For example:
"Holism, stands in stark opposition to the method of reductionism, which holds that analysis, dissection, and strict definition are the tools for understanding reality. Holism asserts that phenomena can never be fully understood in isolation; it asserts that reductionism can only give us a partial view of anything it dissects."
http://www.neat.tas.edu.au/HENT/glossary.htm
I usually like to tell people that I take a holistic approach to my reductionism. I see nothing paradoxical about this. We reduce complex systems to their componenents then we must construct a holistic view of how the components interact to produce the whole system. I think holism and reductionism should go hand-in-hand not be viewed as being in "stark opposition". I have similar problems with the term "emergent" which I have discussed here:
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8870/books/AScott2.html
JWSchmidt 04:08 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)
---
I have a question regarding the article - why on earth should you throw Stephen Gould out of a window ??
Steven Weinberg wrote an essay called 'two cheers for reductionism'. Perhaps worth mentioning?
It's several years since I've read Robert Laughlin's A Different Universe but what I recall of it seems both relevant and surprisingly neglected in this discussion. He points out that there are many scientific 'explanations,' satisfactorily embodied in formulae, that describe systems behaviour while making no claim to understand the systems' components (gas laws would be a typical example). Furthermore, the behaviour frequently turns out to be compatible with a wide range of underlying phenomena, which strongly suggests that attempts to understand the systems' organizing principles by means of analyzing the systems' constituents are misguided. He doesn't mean to undermine reductionism entirely with this kind of observation, just to alert us to the fact that reductionism, like all things, has its limits and becomes counter-productive when asked to exceed them.—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
205.189.194.204 (
talk) 28 April 2011
I'm a bit confused about the "emergence disproving reductionism" part. Maybe some summary on the notion would help? I mean, certainly it isn't argued that emergence is where something is more than the sum of its parts. Does anyone really believe that? It would make *much* more sense for someone to argue that if simpler parts inexplicably result in a more advanced whole than is predicted then the simpler parts' values were miscalculated. Of course, this is just my opinion, but certainly there aren't scientists, (supposedly) the fonts of all that is logical and sound, who would believe otherwise? Where are the sources to this claim?
Generally, people who speak about emergence do mean that there are systems for which the complete correct knowledge about the parts does not offer complete correct knowledge about the system, and some of these people are scientists, or mathematicians. The analysis of complex systems is to do with this. Complex systems are said (although afaik not yet proven) to be impossible to understand analytically. In other words, one can't work, by maths, from the description of the rules of a complex system, a script on how it will behave. Cellular automata with very simple rules and turing-complete behaviour make a good case. Eulen 13:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
[Update, just saw this:]
"I usually like to tell people that I take a holistic approach to my reductionism. I see nothing paradoxical about this. We reduce complex systems to their componenents then we must construct a holistic view of how the components interact to produce the whole system. I think holism and reductionism should go hand-in-hand not be viewed as being in "stark opposition"."
It is indeed true that people can have varying levels of reductionism, and they can reduce systems to certain levels where holistic approaches are then taken. However, if absolute reductionism is not taken, it could be posited that the "best" semi-reductionist method would be to reduce the system of components, or "forms" as I like to call them, to a level of holism where these forms are defined by how they are most logically and naturally perceived. The logicality and naturalness could only be determined if the holistic concepts of "logicality" and "naturalness" were defined, of course, but presumably definitions that satisfy the basal needs of the terms, such as "that which coincides with the natural order of nature" for "logicality", could be found. As you may have noticed, this method of defining the concept of "logicality" is, paradoxically, based on "logicality". But despite being paradoxical, it still works.
ps. sorry about the excessive updates, i'm getting used to this discussion thing.
Should some examples of arguments against reductionism (or links to such arguments) be included? Multiple realizability etc.? (Anon)
Holism advocates that complex systems may possess collective properties which differ from the cumilative sum of individual component properties. The idea is that you cannot produce the whole system through constructing a model based on how individual components behave and interact, and that you can only understand the whole through observing the whole. In this respect, holism contrasts with reductionism. This is especially true of living systems. An example of this is Gaia theory, which brings to light the self-organising properties of the ecosphere, properties which only become apparent when the system is viewed as a whole.
Reductionism should link to systemic thinking. See the work of Peter Senge and Gregory Bateson for further reference. This ideology draws attention to the idea that reductionism, i.e. the isolation and analysis of individual components, gives limited insight into the way in which components relate and interact both with each other and with the systems in which they participate. Furthermore, surely the sentence "But it cannot be understand from such principles as elementary particle physics or superstring theory." should read "But it cannot be understood from such principles as elementary particle physics or superstring theory."
Alzclarke 23:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Reductionism claims that (natural) phenomena can be reduced to the result of interactions between their elementary building blocks within an all-embracing consistent theory that describe the nature of these interactions. Ultimately, this should lead to a "Theory of everything". A reductionist is satisfied if he can explain a natural phenomenon as the result of a known interaction between different building blocks with their specific characteristics.
Emergentists claim that this is not always possible because there are many phenomena with properties that are completely different from those of their elementary building blocks, and that cannot be deduced from them either. For example, an atom has completely different properties than those of its building blocks: electrons, protons and neutrons. An entirely new theory even had to be designed (Bohr's atomic model, the first major success of quantum mechanics) to be able to interpret the atom as a phenomenon. Emergentists, therefore, claim that there cannot be a comprehensive, consistent theory of nature because new emergent phenomena occur at every level of scale, which in themselves can be explained but which are not the obvious result of the interaction between its elementary building blocks.
A simple example for illustration:
The creation and resolution of a traffic jam on a highway can be easily explained and simulated by a computer program. The interaction between those cars depends on the speed and the minimum distance between the cars themselves. The (weak) emergent phenomenon that occurs here is that of a retrorade longitudinal wave. This phenomenon is a characteristic of the collective, not of the individual cars, and is therfore an emergent phenomenon. However, "hard" reductionists will say that this phenomenon can easily be explained by the collective interactions between the cars. The pattern that emerges from this (the longitudinal wave) is a purely subjective assessment based on our knowledge and namegiving of that pattern. This reasoning can be applied to all so-called "weak" emergent phenomena such as: starling a flight, a school of fish, a water vortex, panic in a crowd, the movement of stars in a spiral system, entropy (in the sense of disorder), the so-called Game of Life of Conway.
However, this hard reductionism fails in the case of "strong" emergence such as in the above-mentioned "Bohr" atom model, the result of a chemical reaction, crystal formation, a mutation in the DNA, artefacts, etc. In those cases, the emergent phenomenon has new and special properties that cannot be deduced from the properties of the individual building blocks.
More and more physicists (f.i. Piers Coleman, Klaas Landsman) regard emergentism and reductionism not as contradictory but as complementary. Ypan1944 ( talk) 15:43, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
Question: What if emergent phenomena modulate the behavior of components at a lower, more reduced level?
Would this view be compatible with a reductionist perspective on emergent phenomena, or would it challenge reductionism? I'm thinking in terms of biological systems, in case that helps clarify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.72.192.69 ( talk) 16:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I removed this:
"In short, it is philosophical materialism taken to its logical consequences."
You can be a reductionist without materialism, e.g. a radical empiricsist would claim that all states of affairs, objectcs, things, etc. are reducible to sense-data, regardless of truthvalues necessary for materialism.
Then there is phenomenological reductionism, and Marxist historical materialism is reductionism but a materialism of quite different sort.
(M)
The first of these are commonly accepted but the last step is controversial and therefore the frontier of reductionism: evolutionary -psychology and -sociology vs. those who claim people have a soul or another quality that separates them from the material world.
This seems to imply that either you subscribe to evolutionary psychology and sociology or you believe in a soul or some other supernatural phenomenon. There are many intelligent materialists who are deeply critical of evolutionary psychology and sociology - the late Stephen Jay Gould (unceremoniously defenestrated in another passage of the article) was one. Spiritual explanations are only one kind of counter to reductionist thought, and not in my view the most obvious or important. Breffni-- 134.226.1.194 00:17, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Why throw Jay Gould out of the window? Surely it's just rude unless you explain why it's relevant. 131.111.8.98 12:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
The religious stance hadn't been mentioned,so it can't be a "redescription". These additions are not anti-reductionist, just a framing of the debate. Plz use Talk....
I find the use of the word "item" synonymously with "thing" to be stultified, distracting, and often strictly erroneous. Where things (particulars, articles, instances, etc.) appear among similar things, as in a class (category, list, itemization, etc.), it may be appropriate, depending on one's intention, to identify them as items. But without such an intention or context, "item" is a poor choice of wording. Instead of carrying the broad connotation needed in many of the statements in this discussion, it seems to imply the indication of a specific member of a (presumably finite and known) group. (--Marshall Price, d021317c, October 6, 2006, 10:25 am, EDT)
By coincidence, I just discovered, by way of "Arts and Letters Daily" (www.aldaily.com), an article by the former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Burton Richter, in which he uses "reductionist" not as identifying a theory, but as a "trend" and "direction" on paths to understanding. He distinguishes it from "what appear to me to be empty concepts like naturalness, the anthropic principle, and the landscape" (of theorizing, I think). The article appeared in the October 2006 issue of "Physics Today", and is available as a PDF download. I found it inspired, inspiring, and brilliantly written. It reveals a few crucial facts about the history of theoretical physics which had escaped me before, the learning of which has been quite rewarding. (As an aside, I wonder whether the technology and practice of putting a piano together, regulating it, and tuning it, should be considered constituent parts of the piano.) (--Marshall Price, d021317c, October 6, 2006, 12:20 pm, EDT)
Methodological reductionism is the idea that explanations of things, such as scientific explanations, ought to be continually reduced to the very simplest entities possible (but no simpler). Occam's Razor forms the basis of this type of reductionism.
As far as I can ascertain this is incorrect. Occam's Razor is a preference for simplicity when dealing with "equivalent" theories. I can not see any direct bearing this has on Methodological Reductionism, which is the view that "An understanding of a complex system is best sought at the level of the structure and behavior of its component parts." [2] However, Methodological Reductionism redirects to Occam's Razor. I have thus not edited the article yet, pending further discussion. -- Nappyrash 10:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I have edited the entry for Methodical Reductionism, I think it is now more accurate. Nappyrash 03:33, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the following passage:
There is some truth in the above, but it's so badly muddled that I don't see how to fix it. Point by point:
The ideas might well merit inclusion in the reductionism article, if sourced and explained clearly, but I can find nothing worth saving in the existing text, and I don't have a reference talking about "set-theoretic reductionism" that would enable me to write alternative text. -- Trovatore 08:23, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I think that we should add back the material on set theory. It seems highly relevant to reductionism. Perhaps we could come up with a more balanced viewpoint, and more sources? Cazort ( talk) 19:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
This article seems very inaccurate and misleading to me. Some thoughts: is reductionism a "theory"? Not really in the scientific sense because it cannot be invalidated...rather it seems to be an approach, a principle, a guideline, something of the sort. Also, the "Criticisms" section seems misnamed...it's not so much a question of whether or not reductionism is "correct"...but rather, the question of its scope--what types of systems are appropriate for reductionist thinking/study, and what types are not. The controversy/criticism always stems from application of reductionism to a particular system or field of study. I also find the introductory paragraph discussing unity of science to be pretty problematic. I recommend scrapping it...unless...does anyone see a way to salvage it? It seems very POV, more than a bit arbitrary, and I can see people objecting to it on so many counts. Cazort 20:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I changed "Criticisms of Reductionism" to "Limits to Reductionism"; I don't think anyone dismisses reductionism entirely which is why I think the old heading was misleading. Cazort 23:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I was reading this article and found the term "limits to reductionism" a bit too... final, if you will, for I believe that many people believe that there are not, in fact, any limits to reductionism and that these so-called "limits" are nothing more than superficial. Not that I'm one of these people, of course... but I think that maybe if you said something like "proposed limits to reductionism" or even if you reverted back to "criticisms" it may be better, maybe? Good article, by the way: it may have some problems, but it has a lot less than it could have had for such a controversial subject!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.3.116.34 ( talk) 14:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I deleted the Richard H. Jones source, and all the material associated with it. I feel that this rather extreme action requires some justification and explanation. I know this is a subjective judgment, but I got hold of the book and read it and I found it to be extremely lacking in terms of quality of scholarship and content, and not really suitable as a valid source. If someone wants to dispute this, I'm open to discussion, but I think one would need some sort of verification that that source is indeed accepted as legitimate by others in the field, and honestly I would be very surprised if that were the case. Cazort ( talk) 00:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Response. That is surprising. My assessment is just the opposite. I found the book to be very helpful. I only skimmed the chapters on social science and religion because I am not as interested in those topics, but the chapters on philosophy and science are what I am interested in and I read those chapters carefully. I know something about those topics and I found the scholarship and argumentation to be solid. Perhaps because it is a general work and not for specialists in philosophy of mind or philosophy of science that Cazort did not like it. But for the general reader I would highly recommend it. I restored a citation to the book for the general reader, but the wikipedia being what it is Cazort is free to delete it. -- William Ryan.
Response. I just finished reading Jones' new book Analysis and the Fullness of Reality and found it to be an excellent introduction to the subject, bringing together all the fields and showing the state of reductionism and emergence today. -- William Ryan. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Shankara1000 (
talk •
contribs) 13:21, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
The idea of reductionism was introduced citation needed by Descartes in Part V of his Discourses (1637). Descartes argued the world was like a machine, its pieces like clockwork mechanisms, and that the machine could be understood by taking its pieces apart, studying them, and then putting them back together to see the larger picture. Descartes was a full mechanist, but only because he did not accept the conservation of direction of motions of small things in a machine, including an organic machine. Newton's theory required such conservation for inorganic things at least. When such conservation was accepted for organisms as well as inorganic objects by the middle of the 20th century, no organic mechanism could easily, if at all, be a Cartesian mechanism. citation needed
It's not clear that this is actually reductionism at all, and I don't think it is. It's more of an example of a determinist theory. I'm going to add the stuff from my philosophy book real quick. ImperfectlyInformed | { talk - contribs} 05:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
this article implies that all the greatest minds and philosophers consider that Reductionism is a wonderful thing. this simply isn't true and it would be nice if somebody could review this and make it less like and ideological advertisement —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.56.5.180 ( talk) 22:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Does this qualify? "In decision theory, a nonlinear utility function for a quantity such as money can create a situation in which all relevant decisions to be made in a given time period must to be considered simultaneously in order to maximize utility, if all relevant decisions act on utility only through this quantity." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.225.36 ( talk) 07:22, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I think having a link to the abstraction page, or some kind of explanation of how reductionism works as an abstraction process could make the article a little more clear. Any opinions on this? 129.12.200.50 ( talk) 00:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)Kentuser
This could be extremely useful in this article.
Main Entry: Oc·cam's razor Variant(s): also Ock·ham's razor \ˈä-kəmz-\ Function: noun Etymology: William of Occam Date: circa 1837
I edited the ontological reduction section. I don't think my edit is "original" research, its just very straightforwardly cleaning up the sentence logically. I don't believe the edit would be controversial but this note is just to prevent a knee-jerk revision... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.58.61 ( talk) 02:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
Pertaining to the following;
"As an alternative to set theory, others have argued for category theory as a foundation for certain aspects of mathematics."
This is completely wrong. While it is true that standard ZFC set theory cannot attain some aspects of category theory, category theory is in no way an alternative to set theory. Tarski–Grothendieck set theory can be used as the foundations of category theory. Metamath has a whole spiel about it here; http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/ax-groth.html
I suggest removing the sentence, and perhaps mentioning TG set theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.141.190 ( talk) 05:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
I proposed that this article be merged with Reduction (philosophy). See Here for a discussion of the possible merge.-- Foobarnix ( talk) 22:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Section 1.3 and section 3 have the same title (Ontological reductionism). They should be reduced to one. - Armin B. Wagner ( talk) 13:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
The article on Reductionism as well as the article on Reduction (philosophy) state that ontological reductionism is "the belief that reality is composed of a minimum number of kinds of entities or substances", a claim which is "usually metaphysical". A short explanation would be appropriate. - Armin B. Wagner ( talk) 13:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
I think fragmentalism and reductionism cover the same ground. Throughout most of the former article, it's made clear that "fragmentalism" is a pejorative term for reductionism. Since Wikipedia articles are about things, not words, having two separate articles is a form of content forkery. I could be misunderstanding the issue, though. If the cognitive psychology meaning is clarified, only a partial merger may be necessary. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 18:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Done. Nice job, Neelix. —
Ƶ§œš¹
[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Likewise, anatomists contend that the human body consists of skeleton, muscles, organs, blood vessels, nerves, etc. Holistically, this is merely an abbreviated and hugely simplified model that only partly corresponds to a real human body, which is anatomically a much more complex structure than that. A fragmentalist view of the human body would not necessarily contend that the body is composed of muscles, bones, etc but that the apparent view of individual organs and tissues is truly real and that each organ truly is a discrete entity in its own right. In truth, that is an incorrect oversimplification because no organ or tissue in the body exists separately from all others or from the whole body itself.
The chemical analysis of seawater is a good example of reductionism, but by contrast, a fragmentalist view would hold that seawater really is composed of nothing more than a bunch of sulphates and chlorides and that seawater truly is composed of nothing more than that. I doubt a reductionist would make such a claim because they (should) know that their approach is just a method, and their model is but a simplification of a complex system not to be taken too literally. Likewise, a reductionist approach to anatomy is aware that the body is more than a collection of parts, while a fragmentalist would hold that it truly is composed just of parts. In these senses the two are clearly very different positions.
Reductionism is thus more of a method for simplifying the world into cause and effect mechanisms, while fragmentalism is more of a belief about how the world is actually constructed. You can argue that fragmentalism is a conceptual product of an excessive use of and reliance upon the reductionist method. You can argue that the habitual use of reductionism naturally leads to a fragmentalist belief system. In that respect, the two go hand in hand. Therefore, although the two terms are close and appear to cover the same ground, they are subtly different in that one is merely a shortcut method of describing things, while the other is a viewpoint, a belief that complex things really do consist only of simpler parts.
The main problems with reductionism arise from its failure to take into account the wider picture of a field of inquiry. It looks at the pieces and fails to reassemble them into a whole. This was the basis of Rachel Carson's critique of the impact pesticides were having in the early 1960s. Pesticides target unwanted parts of nature--weeds, pests, insects--while ignoring the possible impacts those chemicals can have on other parts of nature such as beneficial insects, soil organisms, aquatic systems, human food chains, etc.
Persistent use of reductionism can then lead to a fragmentalist view, a type of tunnel vision that contends that our world truly is composed of parts that can be regarded as separate entities.
The problem with fragmentalism is that the world is not actually composed of parts at all but that this is just a product of our perception and of the words we use to describe things. Rocks, minerals, seawater, soil and the atmosphere are all in truth complex natural materials that cannot be fully broken down into truly existent parts. In absolute terms, fragmentalism is thus a convenient but a false view of reality. Likewise, a living organism is not truly composed of parts; that is just a way of seeing it and describing it. The tongue or cheek does not exist separate from the mouth or face; in reality, all the parts blend into each other and do not have a separate existence as discrete entities in their own right. In this respect, reductionism is a false method and fragmentalism is a false view of complex things.
In essence, therefore, reductionism is a method of enquiry that reduces complex things into simpler models, while fragmentalism is a belief that the world is actually composed of parts. One is a method and the other is a belief system. I hope that clarifies why I think the two articles should remain separate. The fragmentalism article ideally needs more depth and detail and more citations to illustrate the above points. Apologies fo length. Peter morrell 19:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Whatever the meaning of "Fragmentalism" may be (I assume that Peter Morell can provide a number of quotations from the literature) I am sure that the dispute cannot just be about the question whether you call that what something is composed of its "parts" or its "wholes". It should also be really clear that "Reductionism" does not simply refer to some analytic method. The reductionism article should clearly cover the various connotations of the term, regardless of what some other term might mean, and quite some work needs to be done, so Neelix could just go on and do it (again, regardless of some notion of "Fragmentalism"). Peter Morell should produce references to and quotations from the literature on fragmentalism, so that it can be seen that it actually is a term with some meaning that is not synonymous with "reductionism" which would justify a seperate article. 㓟 ( talk) 09:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
I just found editation 12 November 2007 ( User:Cazort) with link to ref.
Is this NPOV? Source says e.g. "You cannot have organisms whose internal functioning flouts the rules of physics and chemistry.".
I'm a bit familiar with Engineering cybernetics, Control theory (see Modern control theory and Controllability and observability paragraphs), State space representation and this flavour of cybernetics is IMHO reductionist (not non-reductionist). -- mj41 ( talk) 22:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
In this edit Anonymous user 173.228.46.246 attached a rewrite tag to the article without any guidance on the Talk page. In this edit Sunrise moved the tag to the top of the page without further comment. IMO, if this tag is to mean something, it needs to be clarified on this Talk page just what the objections are. I have therefore removed this tag. Brews ohare ( talk) 16:26, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree the tag is spurious ---- Snowded TALK 13:18, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure that a Philosophy of Biology by a single author can be used to justify a general statement about extreme (itself a judgement mental phrase)) and non-extreme versions. We need something that addresses Philosophy a a whole to justify that type of change to the lede---- Snowded TALK 19:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Below is an extended quotation from Godfrey-Smith's Philosophy of Biology, which can be read first-hand using Amazons's look-inside feature:
I have placed this excerpt here for the benefit of Snowded, who suspects the quote in the Intro was taken out of context. Brews ohare ( talk) 23:23, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Well, I agree with Brews about the sources. On the other hand, I agree with Snowded that Brews' statement that "[c]onsensus has nothing to do with it" is absolutely wrong. Frenchmalawi ( talk) 14:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
When I checked the 'meta sources' they do not support the distinction implied in Brew's recent changes. Honderich (which is the most recent one I have access to) basically says it is one of the most used and abused terms used in Philosophy. He then makes a three part division between Ontological, Methodological and Theory based reductionism. Blackburn again does not make a strong/weak distinction and generally supports Honderich with some useful examples of how reductionism manifests itself in philosophy. My feeling is that summarising these two sources which talk about the field as a whole would be the best way to revise the lede. Comments? ---- Snowded TALK 06:53, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
User:Brews ohare and User:Snowded: this is the sort of interaction that I commend you both on. Teasing things out and improving the article. I hate the idea of either of you being blocked off Wikipedia or something like that. WP is the looser when that happens. Frenchmalawi ( talk) 14:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I've reordered subsections, put headers of same construction at the same level. However this article is a mess. Brews ohare ( talk) 18:57, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
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The sentence:
[...] that form of reductionism concerning a program of replacing the facts or entities entering statements claimed to be true in one type of discourse with other facts or entities from another type, [...]
To me this sentence seams as if the writer had insufficient knowledge of english. This implies, that this article may, in part or in full, be a bad translation from another language. Strikefinger ( talk) 21:48, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 August 2022 and 4 September 2022. Further details are available
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article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Sunsh1n3d011 ( talk) 07:03, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I've removed a good chunk of the content of this page as it was both poorly cited and not actually about the subject of the article. I still think we should have a criticism section that discusses ideas like emergence, and why some people who study complex systems, ecology, etc. oppose "reductionist" views but it shouldn't bleed into the descriptions of the different kinds of reductionism! Since there was so much content on emergence and holism, I erred on the side of removing content not supported by high-quality secondary sources, if anyone wants to source it better and add it into the criticism section I think that's fine but we don't need in-depth explanations - there's plenty of pages on those topics that can and should be linked to rather than re-hashing that material here. - car chasm ( talk) 16:19, 2 June 2023 (UTC)