[lit-ideas] Re: Reductive vs. Reductionist
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 23:19:22 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 3/7/2013 9:44:37 P.M. UTC-02, omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx
writes:
Occam's razor (as commonly understood) doesn't mean that "only one level
of explanation [say physics] is necessary".
Indeed. As a drop-out from Paris (and student at Oxford), Ockham (as I
prefer to spell him) was in a campaign against the Irish philosopher Dunce The
Scot.
So, it's
ENTIA NON SUNT MULTIPLICANDA PRAETER NECESSITATEM.
i.e. we have
a white horse.
No need, as the Scot had said, to postulate, whiteness, horseness,
thisness, etc.
So, as formulated, Ockham applied the thing to ITEMS in the universe, not
to explanations.
If we take a NATURALISTIC stance such as Nikolai Hartmann's, or Grice's, we
can say that there are ONLY NATURAL THINGS (naturalia) -- what would
correspond to a physical level (never mind explanation). BIOLOGICAL entities
are
thus, ontologically, natural entities -- even if there may be a level of
biological (e.g. teleological) explanation that defies a mechanistic
interpretation (I doubt it).
When it comes to postulated higher levels -- psychologica, sociologica,
etc. -- the reduction seems easy to achieve. Even if there may be a
sociological or economical 'law' that does not fit a physical (or purely
natural)
mechanistic explanation, this does not refute a parsimonious naturalism alla
Ockham.
But again, Ockham's point was against that mediaeval monster -- the
universalia.
Popper would not be interested in this, because he is trying to provide a
philosophy of SCIENCE, i.e. a rationalisation of what scientists do, while
most philosophers, and students of philosophy, and historians of philosophy,
attempt to rationalise what philosophers (even the irrationalist bunch
like) are trying to say when they say 'reductive' or 'reductionist'.
Incidentally, Grice's reduction of "personal identity" (or "I"-statements)
to mnemonic states he dubs, following Broad, a LOGICAL construction, which
is the philosopher's favourite pasttime. Consider the reduction of
'material objects' to sense data.
In his "Eschatology" paper in Way of Words, he traces reduction of
legalistic OUGHT to moral OUGHT in a discussion between Thrasymachus and
Socrates,
even.
Without 'reductive' there is possibly no philosophy as we know it.
Reductionism is 'reductive analysis' galore -- and involves a more serious
enterprise of trying to prove that the category-to-be-reduced is UNINTELLIGIBLE
per se (e.g. 'soul' does not make sense, so the physicalist HAS to see it as a
manifestation of 'body' -- and so on).
Cheers,
Speranza
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