The topics of methodological individualism as well as microfoundationalism unavoidably cross with the see of reductionism -- the notion tha...
The topics of methodological individualism as well as microfoundationalism unavoidably cross with the see of reductionism -- the notion that higher marking entities as well as structures need somehow to live "reduced" to facts or properties having to attain with lower marking structures. In the social sciences, this amounts to something along these lines: the properties as well as dynamics of social entities need to live explained past times the properties as well as interactions of the individuals who constitute them. Social facts need to trim to a prepare of individual-level facts as well as laws. Similar positions arise inward psychology ("psychological properties as well as dynamics need to trim to facts near the activities as well as properties of the cardinal nervous system") as well as biological scientific discipline ("complex biological systems similar genes as well as cells need to trim to the biochemistry of the interacting systems of molecules that brand them up").
Reductionism has a bad flavour inside much of philosophy, but it is worth abode on the concept a flake to a greater extent than fully.
Why would the strategy of reduction live appealing inside a scientific question tradition? Here is i reason: at that spot is evident explanatory gain that results from showing how the complex properties as well as functionings of a higher-level entity are the lawsuit of the properties as well as interactions of its lower marking constituents. This variety of demonstration serves to explicate the upper marking system's properties inward price of the entities that arrive up. This is the rationale for Peter Hedstrom's metaphor of "dissecting the social" (Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology); inward his words,
To dissect, every bit the term is used here, is to decompose a complex totality into its element entities as well as activities as well as so to convey into focus what is believed to live its most essential elements. (kl 76)
Aggregate or macro-level patterns unremarkably tell surprisingly piffling near why nosotros regain detail aggregate patterns, as well as our explanations must thence focus on the micro-level processes that brought them about. (kl 141)
The explanatory strategy illustrated past times Thomas Schelling inward Micromotives as well as Macrobehavior proceeds inward a similar fashion. Schelling wants to demonstrate how a complex social phenomenon (say, residential segregation) tin live the lawsuit of a prepare of preferences as well as beliefs of the independent individuals who brand upward the relevant population. And this is too the approach that is taken past times researchers who railroad train agent-based models (link).
Why is the appeal to reduction sometimes frustrating to other scientists as well as philosophers? Because it oft seems to live a means of changing the dependent land away from our master scientific interest. We started out, let's say, with an involvement inward motion perception, looking at the perceiver every bit an information-processing system, as well as the reductionist keeps insisting that nosotros plow our attending to the scheme of a prepare of nervus cells. But nosotros weren't interested inward nervus cells; nosotros were interested inward the computational systems associated with motion perception.
Another argue to live frustrated with "methodological reductionism" is the conviction that mid-level entities direct hold stable properties of their own. So it isn't necessary to trim those properties to their underlying constituents; rather, nosotros tin investigate those properties inward their ain terms, as well as so brand job of this cognition to explicate other things at that level.
Finally, it is oft the instance that it is only impossible to reconstruct with whatever useful precision the micro-level processes that give ascent to a given higher-level structure. The mathematical properties of complex systems come upward inward here: fifty-fifty relatively uncomplicated physical systems, governed past times deterministic mechanical laws, exhibit behaviour that cannot live calculated on the footing of data near the starting weather condition of the system. H5N1 solar scheme with a massive star at the oculus as well as a handful of relatively low-mass planets produces a regular prepare of elliptical orbits. But a three-body gravitational scheme creates computational challenges that arrive impossible to predict the futurity the world of the system; fifty-fifty pocket-size errors of standard or intruding forces tin significantly shift the development of the system. (Here is an interesting animation of a three-body gravitational system; the icon at the locomote past times is a screenshot.)
We mightiness capture component of this prepare of ideas past times noting that nosotros tin distinguish broadly betwixt vertical as well as lateral explanatory strategies. Reduction is a vertical strategy. The uncovering of the causal powers of a mid-level entity as well as job of those properties to explicate the behaviour of other mid-level entities as well as processes is a lateral or horizontal strategy. It remains inside a given marking of construction rather than moving upward as well as downwardly over 2 or to a greater extent than levels.
William Wimsatt is a philosopher of biological scientific discipline whose writings near reduction direct hold illuminated the topic significantly. His article "Reductionism as well as its heuristics: Making methodological reductionism honest" is especially useful (link). Wimsatt distinguishes alongside iii varieties of reductionism inward the philosophy of science: inter-level reductive explanations, same-level reductive theory succession, as well as eliminative reduction (448). He finds that eliminative reduction is a non-starter; virtually no scientists run into value inward attempting to eliminate references to the higher-level domain inward favor of a lower-level domain. Inter-level reduction is essentially what was described above. And theory-succession reduction is a mapping from i theory to the adjacent of the ontologies that they depend upon. Here is his description of "successional reduction":
Successional reductions commonly relate theories or models of entities which are either at the same compositional marking or they relate theories that aren't level-specific.... They are relationships betwixt theoretical structures where i theory or model is transformed into some other ... to localize similarities as well as differences betwixt them. (449)
I suppose an illustration of this variety of reduction is the mapping of the quantum theory of the atom onto the classical theory of the atom.
Here is Wimsatt's description of inter-level reductive explanation:
Inter-level reductions explicate phenomena (entities, relations, causal regularities) at i marking via operations of oft qualitatively dissimilar mechanisms at lower levels. (450)
Here is an illustration he offers of the "reduction" of Mendel's factors inward biology:
Mendel's factors are successively localized through mechanistic accounts (1) on chromosomes past times the Boveri–Sutton hypothesis (Darden, 1991), (2) relative to other genes inward the chromosomes past times linkage mapping (Wimsatt, 1992), (3) to bands inward the physical chromosomes past times deletion mapping (Carlson, 1967), as well as lastly (4) to specific sites inward chromosomal deoxyribonucleic acid thru diverse methods using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to amplify the number of copies of targeted segments of deoxyribonucleic acid to seat as well as localize them (Waters, 1994).
What I regain useful near Wimsatt's approach is the fact that he succeeds inward de-dramatizing this issue. He puts aside the comprehensive as well as full general claims that direct hold sometimes been made on behalf of "methodological reductionism" inward the past, as well as considers specific instances inward biological scientific discipline where scientists direct hold establish it rattling useful to investigate the vertical relations that be betwixt higher-level as well as lower-level structures. This takes reductionism out of the domain of a full general philosophical regulation as well as into that of a detail question heuristic.
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