Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences

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The second dimension to be considered is factual accuracy. An explanation with less idealizations and abstractions is usually judged to be better than one with more. However, factual accuracy is often in conflict with the other dimensions of explanatory power: it is difficult to have an explanation that is both factually accurate, nonsensitive, integrated with other explanations and cognitively salient. The technical precision of RCT concepts can give rise to an impression of precise descriptions of psychological phenomena, but in reality it does not score highly in terms of factual accuracy. Not only does RCT significantly abstract away from the details of psychological phenomena, it also quite often factually distorts the descriptions of these phenomena. For example, the RCT reconstruction of psychological process can give a causally misleading account of it by describing as purposive behavior what was habitual or unconscious, or rationalizing decision-making processes that were everything but rational. The final dimension we want to consider is the degree of integration with existing knowledge. It contributes to explanatory understanding by expanding the set of explanatory questions that can be answered by them separately. As RCT is just a formalization of everyday folk psychology, it is relatively well integrated with it. However, it is an open question how much this expands their joint explanatory reach. RCT fares even worse with respect to integration with other scientific theories. The difficulties of integrating RCT with the results of empirical research in psychology and social sciences are well known. When RCT is further strengthened with intentional fundamentalism, the problems become even greater. As suggested above, the ideas underlying intentional fundamentalism are not compatible with causal mechanistic explanatory ideas that motivate other sciences. Largely because of the very idea of a fundament, the fundamentalist RCT has extremely low degree of integration with other bodies of scientific knowledge. Intentional Fundamentalism — Petri Ylikoski / Jaakko Kuorikoski Literature Boudon, Raymond 1998 “Social mechanisms without black boxes”, in Hedström, Peter and Richard Swedberg (eds.) Social mechanisms: an analytical approach to social theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 172-203. Coleman, James and Thomas Fararo 1992 “Introduction”, in Rational Choice Theory. Advocacy and Critique, New York: Sage, ixxxii. Craver, Carl 2007 Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience, New York and Oxford: Clarendon Press. Friedman, Michael 1974 “Explanation and Scientific Understanding”, Journal of Philosophy 71, 5-19. Lehtinen, Aki and Jaakko Kuorikoski 2007 “Unrealistic Assumptions in Rational Choice Theory”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences 37, 115-137. Satz, Debra and John Ferejohn 1994 “Rational Choice and Social Theory”, Journal of Philosophy 91, 71-87. Schurz, Gerhard and Lambert, Karel 1994 “Outline of a Theory of Scientific Understanding”, Synthese 101, 65-120. Toulmin, Stephen 1961 Foresight and Understanding, London: Hutchinson & Co. Wilson, Timothy 2004 Strangers to Ourselves, Belknap Press. Woodward, James 2003 Making Things Happen. A Theory of Causal Explanation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ylikoski Petri 2008 “The illusion of depth of understanding in science”, forthcoming in De Regt, Sabinelli & Eigner (eds.) Scientific Understanding: Philosophical Perspectives. Pittsburgh University Press. Ylikoski, Petri and Jaakko Kuorikoski 2008 “Dissecting Explanatory Power”, under review. 407
New Hope for Non-Reductive Physicalism Julie Yoo, Easton, Pennsylvania, USA The Problem Non-reductive physicalists want to hold on to the idea that higher-level properties – mental properties, especially – have an autonomous ontological standing, and hence, their own distinctive causal powers. But their equal commitment to physicalism threatens to undermine this commitment to the autonomy of higher-level properties. This is, in effect, Kim’s dilemma for non-reductive physicalism: it is inherently unstable because the physicalism denies the irreducibility thesis, while the irreducibility thesis denies physicalism (Kim 1989, 1993, 1998, 2005). In this paper, I shall to propose a novel way of solving this dilemma. The Way Out of the Bind: Reducing Higher-Level Properties While Retaining their Powers My argument, in a nutshell, is this. A property exists if and only it can confer causal powers upon its bearers. Properties are individuated in terms of the distinctive range of causal powers each of them are capable of conferring. Now, mental properties confer causal powers completely in virtue of the physical properties on which they logically supervene, but no mental property is identical with a physical property. The concept of property realization renders possible the consistent conjunction of these two strands – irreducibility and physicalism. Let us get started with a picture of multiple realizability to get us oriented with respect to its sister notion of property realization. On standard accounts of multiple realizability, it is believed that different physical properties – different physical types of kinds – P1, P2, … Pn, can each necessitate one and the same type of mental M (or higherlevel) property: Fig. 1 M R1 R2 … Rn While this picture isn’t wrong, the schematic nature of the diagram engenders an oversimplified way of thinking about realization that is misleading. It is misleading in that it gives the impression that a given realization R is a single physical property. But this convenient simplification obscures an important detail, much attended to by the emergentists, to their credit, and it is that a mental property is a property of a system made up of concrete aggregates and whose micro-physical properties and relations make the operations of the whole system or mechanism possible. To say that a property is multiply realizable is to say that a number of different kinds of systems or mechanisms – ones that are not only made up of different kinds of materials, but that also have different kinds of architectural configurations – can execute one and the same function. Think of the indispensible corkscrew: there is the rack and pinion model, the waiter’s corkscrew, and the rigid coiled wire with a convenient handle. Each of these different kinds of mechanisms counts as a distinct type of realization; that is, 408 the rack and pinion model is R1, the waiter’s corkscrew is R2, and so on. A more careful look at what’s going on suggests that a concrete instance of a given realization is best represented as being made up of inter-related microphysical aggregates a1, a2, …, an, having micro-physical properties P1, P2, …, Pn, whose causal powers “constitute” the causal powers of M: Fig. 2 M R1 R2 . . . Rn a1 a2 an b1 b2 bn P1 P2 Pn Q1 Q2 Qn The realizing base of M is the micro-physical properties P1, P2, …, Pn of the constituent aggregates a1, a2, …, an, which they instantiate in virtue of being the type of material or substance they are. 1 Now, if physicalism is true, then each of these properties have causal powers that fully determine the causal powers of M. M, to use an emergentist term, is a resultant of each of the micro-physical properties P1, P2, … Pn. The question, then, is how M is capable of having its own distinctive causal powers, given that M’s powers are fully derived from its realizing base. The answer lies in drawing a connection between two things: a causal power conception of the nature of properties (Shoemaker 1984), now often called the “Eleatic theory of properties,” 2 and the phenomenon of universalizability, as described by Robert Batterman (2000, 2001). I begin with universality. To the extent that each mental property, by all appearances, has a unique array of causal powers (the total facts about which a complete empirical functionalist analysis of mental properties would deliver) it satisfies a necessary condition for being a distinctive genuine property. Now, one of the remarkable things about nature is that there are higher-level regularities that are realized by very heterogeneous mechanisms. That is, wildly different kinds of systems manage to accomplish the same kinds of tasks. This phenomenon is what Jerry Fodor 1997 has called a “metaphysical mystery” – how, in essence, things that are so different can still give rise to things that are the same: 1 Actually, Fig. 2 may also be too schematic. Depending on how we want to individuate the a’s, it is possible for a given a to have many properties P, not just a single property in the way Fig. 2 represents. Take a particular corkscrew x and say that x is the rack and pinion kind. The individual x has the macro-property M of being a corkscrew in virtue of x’s being composed of two handle bars, a flange, spindle, metal spiral, etc.. These are the a’s that have the P’s whose collective instantiation makes it possible for the a’s to constitute x and enable it to do its thing. Now, the handle bars alone would have the properties of being handle-bar shaped, being rigid, being made of metal, and so on, so a given a is most likely to have properties P. I won’t be too fussy about this detail, as Fig. 2 is sufficient as a working model.) 2 The Eleatic theory of properties is so called because the conception goes back to Plato’s Eleatic stranger in the Sophist, who suggests that the mark of being is power. This idea is also codified in what Kim calls “Alexander’s principle,” named after the emergentist, Samuel Alexander, who argued that a property must have causal powers to exist.
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31 Alexander Hieke Hannes Leitgeb H
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Reduktion und Elimination in Philos
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Distributors Die Österreichische L
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6 Inhalt / Contents Wittgenstein me
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8 Inhalt / Contents The Evolution o
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Formal Mechanisms for Reduction in
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4. Property language and theoretica
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imperatives, or commands in the for
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Referential Practice and the Lure o
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The Augustinian account confuses mo
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hurried to fix it on the page. The
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The Essence (?) of Color, According
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Literature Austin, James 1980 “Wi
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Wittgenstein’s Externalism - Gett
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Informal Reduction E.P. Brandon, Ca
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An Anti-Reductionist Argument Based
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An Anti-Reductionist Argument Based
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Did I Do It? -Yeah, You Did! Wittge
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Literature Did I Do It? -Yeah, You
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tween the two approaches. The task
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On Two Recent Defenses of The Simpl
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On Two Recent Defenses of The Simpl
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Queen Victoria’s Dying Thoughts T
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Diagonalization. The Liar Paradox,
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Proof: Given a function ƒ from con
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that I am sure that it is true that
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experiencing something as a red pen
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There can be Causal without Ontolog
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There can be Causal without Ontolog
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objects. But they also leave unansw
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The Knower Paradox and the Quantifi
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The Knower Paradox and the Quantifi
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lent. It also implies that an inven
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The Scapegoat Theory of Causality M
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We may have evolved a specialized c
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easoning have their source in the l
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Wittgenstein on Frazer and Explanat
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genstein 1993, p. 143). In order to
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an adequate syntactic analysis of o
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Wittgenstein meets ÖGS: Wovon man
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Wittgenstein meets ÖGS: Wovon man
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3. Der Elementarsatz wird als Relat
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Literatur Glock, Hans Johann 2006
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Explaining the Brain: Ruthless Redu
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Occam’s Razor in the Theory of Th
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Literature Campbell, Donald T. 1987
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Die Nichtreduzierbarkeit der klassi
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Literatur Die Nichtreduzierbarkeit
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Let T I be the minimal theory of tr
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Does Bradley’s Regress Support No
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(3) Mutatis mutandis, realism has t
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Zeitliche Ontologie und zeitliche R
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Betrachtung ontologischer Fragen, M
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The decisive consequences of this a
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Benacerraf and Bad Company (An Atta
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offer a solution to the bad company
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Literature Benacerraf, Paul 1965
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"PA" by using "PA* ", at least at t
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Hard Naturalism and its Puzzles Ren
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The Mind-Body-Problem and Score-Kee
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mental properties, for instance, or
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kommt es zu einem gravierenden Miss
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Reduction Revisited: The Ontologica
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4. Conclusion Reduction Revisited:
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All in all, we have seen that reduc
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Physicalism Without the A Priori Pa
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Literature Cartwright, Nancy 1999:
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Wittgensteins Projektionsmethode al
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Schlussbemerkungen Wittgensteins Pr
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intentional states requires functio
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Relating Theories. Models and Struc
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Literature Relating Theories. Model
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e invoked in response to the questi
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Do Brains Think? Christopher Humphr
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4. Conclusion So do brains think or
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How Metaphors Alter the World-Pictu
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The Modal Supervenience of the Conc
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Literature van der Auwera, Johan an
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3. The Determination of Form by Syn
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Zwischen Humes Gesetz und „Sollen
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Assessing Humean Supervenience Amir
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determination thesis; it fails as a
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Aus der obigen Definition folgt, da
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Ding-Ontology of Aristotle vs. Sach
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Ding-Ontology of Aristotle vs. Sach
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How do Moral Principles Figure in M
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“Downward Causation”: Emergent,
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“Downward Causation”: Emergent,
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A with distinguished subset Z of te
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A Metaphysically Moderate Version o
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Literature Balashov, Yuri 2002 ''Wh
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“In der Frage liegt ein Fehler”
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Problems with Psychophysical Identi
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identity theory, or as a predecesso
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of the world. It only matters that
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Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in th
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Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in th
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notion of time and requires that so
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Some Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ty
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Some Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ty
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concrete particulars can be subject
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phenomenal concept of experiencing
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Metaphorische Bedeutung als virtus
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speaker is then attaching a special
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„Vom Weißdorn und vom Propheten
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„Die Einheit hören“ - Einige
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„Die Einheit hören“ - Einige
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S4) the necessity of arithmetic is
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Getting out from Inside: Why the Cl
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Dispensing with Particulars: Unders
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Literature Dispensing with Particul
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Reichenbach’s Concept of Logical
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Defining Ontological Naturalism Mar
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Literature Jackson, Frank 1986. “
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properties are located. This proces
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‘our conceptual scheme’ “is c
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Properties and Reduction between Me
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Does this mean that metaphysics sho
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do not pick out pain in a system by
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The Writing of Nietzsche and Wittge
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his teachings. He coincides with hi
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sense of a proposition without firs
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Naturalistic Ethics: A Logical Posi
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Literature Kant, Immanuel 2006 Crit
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What we now require is a bridge the
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Species, Variability, and Integrati
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could mention the many sorts of iso
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to work this way. Classic examples
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The Key Problems of KC Matteo Pleba
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have embraced the myth of prose: it
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5. Prior’s Problem As Patrick Bla
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Reductionism in Axiology: the Case
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developing of cancer tissue in huma
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(2) One-way Nagelian bridge princip
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Rethinking the Modal Argument again
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Rethinking the Modal Argument again
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that we are to find the features we
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Atypical Rational Agency Paul Raymo
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Literature Anscombe, G. E. M. 1957
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situation bieten sich keine Kriteri
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Two Reductions of ‘rule’ Dana R
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one that could take place, but does
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physics is not able to make, since
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Wittgenstein’s Attitudes Fabien S
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view of logic, in accordance with h
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Warum man auf transzendentalphiloso
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Making the Mind Higher-Level Elizab
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Literature Churchland, P. M. (1995)
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Mental Causation: A Lesson from Act
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Again, this is mistaken. Non-reduct
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auf alle Arten von kontingenten Pro
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Reduction, Sets, and Properties Ben
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Literature Egan, Andy (2004): ‘Se
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there is a tension between evaluati
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The Elimination of Meaning in Compu
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sufficient to explain all of the em
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that 'A' and 'A' could never be tok
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the necktie sense) can differ in wh
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Supervenience and ‘Should’ Arto
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word 'norm' can be thought to expre
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Rule-following as Coordination: A G
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vast majority are bent: gruesome, g
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human life, the violent condition o
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A Division in Mind. The Misconceive
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A Division in Mind. The Misconceive
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could then deduce (1c) and conclude
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Neutral Monism. A Miraculous, Incoh
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Neutral Monism. A Miraculous, Incoh
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A somewhat Eliminativist Proposal a
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Impliziert der intentionale Redukti
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Impliziert der intentionale Redukti
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Structure of the Paradoxes, Structu
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Structure of the Paradoxes, Structu
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that he was working on a translatio
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Objects of Perception, Objects of S
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Objects of Perception, Objects of S
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Page 386 and 387: On the Characterization of Objects
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Page 394 and 395: From Topology to Logic. The Neural
Page 396 and 397: From Topology to Logic. The Neural
Page 398 and 399: The Calculus of Inductive Construct
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Page 402 and 403: experience. Of course, a detailed a
Page 404 and 405: Clearly x = y → x = ext y holds,
Page 406 and 407: Intentional Fundamentalism Petri Yl
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Page 418: Publications of the Austrian Ludwig
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