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Two Cheers for Reductionism: Or, the Dim Prospects for Non-Reductive Materialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Andrew Melnyk
Andrew Melnyk*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Missouri-Columbia
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Abstract

I argue that a certain version of physicalism, which is viewed by both its admirers and its detractors as non-reductionist, in fact entails two claims which, though not reductionist in the currently most popular sense of ‘reductionist’, conform to the spirit of reductionism sufficiently closely to compromise its claim to be a comprehensively non-reductionist version of physicalism. Putatively non-reductionist versions of physicalism in general, I suggest, are likely to be non-reductionist only in some senses, but not in others, and hence to disappoint those who wish to be physicalists but still to remain soft and cuddly non-reductionists.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 370 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1995

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Footnotes

†

Thanks for comments on an earlier draft to Robert N. Johnson, Peter Markie, and Paul Weirich.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, 438 General Classroom Building, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.

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