“Reductionism can either mean (a) an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.”
This post is about the second meaning. But that meaning is silly, useless, and redundantly duplicates other terms for such nonsense—such as reducibility and irreducibility.
We should kill off that meaning—and reclaim the meaning of the term that is useful and sensible. Posts like this one—which use the second meaning—are part of the problem.
This discusssion is about the term “reductionism”—which is obviously some kind of philosophy about “reducing” things—but the cited definitions differ on the details of exactly what the term means.
The first meaning just states the obvious, IMO. Also, other terms have that kind of nonsense covered. There is no need to overload the perfectly useful and good term “reductionism” with something that is only useful for the refutation of nonsense. It just causes the type of mix-up that you see in this thread.
You are confusing me, Tim. Above you seemed to be criticizing the usefulness of the second meaning. Now, you seem to be criticizing the usefulness of the first.
Which do you find useless: the label for a methodology, or the label for a hypothesis about the possibility of hierarchical explanations?
Reductionism and Holism should be the names of strategies for analysing complex sysytems by reducing them to the interactions of their parts—or considering them as high-level entities—respectively.
The other terminology—the kind used in this post—is very bad. People should not overload such useful terminology—unless there really is no other way.
One windmill I try to avoid attacking is the dictionary. I would suggest you spend a few extra syllables and refer to a. as “methodological reductionism” and b. as “philosophical (or ontological) reductionism”. I understand the badness of needless overloading, but I’m not sure I agree that b. is “useless” simply because its validity is obvious to you. Would you also advocate abandoning the term “atheism”?
My problem with philosophical reductionism is I don’t know whether it is a claim about the territory or a convention about maps. If it is a claim about the territory, I certainly remain unconvinced, having not yet glimpsed the territory.
Would you also advocate abandoning the term “atheism”?
That is likely to lead off topic. If the atheists and agnostics could sit down and decide what those terms actually meant, it would certainly help. Meanwhile, call me an adeist.
One can’t just let dictionary authors rule language. When they get scientific things wrong, responsible individuals should put up a fight. Look at what is happening to “epigenesis”—for example. Or “emergence”.
I understand, I just don’t get why you object to reductionism as exemplified by the second definition. It seems to me a fairly reasonable philosophical position.
I object to that terminology because it overloads a useful term which is used for something else without having a good excuse for doing so. Call the idea that invisible pixies push atoms around “irreducibility”—or something else—anything!
IMO, “Reductionism” and “Holism” should be reserved for the Hofstadter-favoured sense of those words—or you have a terminological mess:
“Reductionism” has come to have two meanings:
“Reductionism can either mean (a) an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism
This post is about the second meaning. But that meaning is silly, useless, and redundantly duplicates other terms for such nonsense—such as reducibility and irreducibility.
We should kill off that meaning—and reclaim the meaning of the term that is useful and sensible. Posts like this one—which use the second meaning—are part of the problem.
Why is it silly to say that higher level phenomena reduce, in principle, to ontologically fundamental particle fields?
This discusssion is about the term “reductionism”—which is obviously some kind of philosophy about “reducing” things—but the cited definitions differ on the details of exactly what the term means.
The first meaning just states the obvious, IMO. Also, other terms have that kind of nonsense covered. There is no need to overload the perfectly useful and good term “reductionism” with something that is only useful for the refutation of nonsense. It just causes the type of mix-up that you see in this thread.
You are confusing me, Tim. Above you seemed to be criticizing the usefulness of the second meaning. Now, you seem to be criticizing the usefulness of the first.
Which do you find useless: the label for a methodology, or the label for a hypothesis about the possibility of hierarchical explanations?
a) - good; b) - not needed. (Ref for a and b: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism)
Reductionism and Holism should be the names of strategies for analysing complex sysytems by reducing them to the interactions of their parts—or considering them as high-level entities—respectively.
The other terminology—the kind used in this post—is very bad. People should not overload such useful terminology—unless there really is no other way.
One windmill I try to avoid attacking is the dictionary. I would suggest you spend a few extra syllables and refer to a. as “methodological reductionism” and b. as “philosophical (or ontological) reductionism”. I understand the badness of needless overloading, but I’m not sure I agree that b. is “useless” simply because its validity is obvious to you. Would you also advocate abandoning the term “atheism”?
My problem with philosophical reductionism is I don’t know whether it is a claim about the territory or a convention about maps. If it is a claim about the territory, I certainly remain unconvinced, having not yet glimpsed the territory.
That is likely to lead off topic. If the atheists and agnostics could sit down and decide what those terms actually meant, it would certainly help. Meanwhile, call me an adeist.
One can’t just let dictionary authors rule language. When they get scientific things wrong, responsible individuals should put up a fight. Look at what is happening to “epigenesis”—for example. Or “emergence”.
I understand, I just don’t get why you object to reductionism as exemplified by the second definition. It seems to me a fairly reasonable philosophical position.
I object to that terminology because it overloads a useful term which is used for something else without having a good excuse for doing so. Call the idea that invisible pixies push atoms around “irreducibility”—or something else—anything!
IMO, “Reductionism” and “Holism” should be reserved for the Hofstadter-favoured sense of those words—or you have a terminological mess:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l76/orestesmantra/MU.jpg
Oh, I see. Thanks for clarifying.