Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T04:05:52.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nagelian Reduction beyond the Nagel Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Raphael van Riel
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Nagel's official model of theory reduction and the way it is represented in the literature are shown to be incompatible with the careful remarks on the notion of reduction Nagel gave while developing his model. Based on these remarks, an alternative model is outlined, which does not face some of the problems the official model faces. Taking the context in which Nagel developed his model into account, it is shown that the way Nagel shaped his model and, thus, its well-known deficiencies are best conceived of as a mere by-product of his philosophical background.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 353 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

I would like to express my gratitude to Albert Newen, Stephan Hartmann, two anonymous reviewers, and Dan Brooks for their suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of this article. Moreover, I would like to thank the groups at the Philosophy Department of Ruhr-University of Bochum and at the Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science, for stimulating discussions of related topics.

References

Bickle, John. 1998. Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bickle, John. 2003. Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf. 1934. The Unity of Science. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co.Google Scholar
Churchland, Patricia. 1986. Neurophilosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Churchland, Paul M. 1985. “Reduction, Qualia and the Direct Introspection of Brain States.” Journal of Philosophy 82:8–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darden, Lindley, and Maull, Nancy. 1977. “Interfield Theories.” Philosophy of Science 44:43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dizadji-Bahmani, Foad, Frigg, Roman, and Hartmann, Stephan. 2010. “Who Is Afraid of Nagelian Reduction?” Erkenntnis 73:393–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endicott, Ronald. 1998. “Collapse of the New Wave.” Journal of Philosophy 95:53–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endicott, Ronald. 2001. “Post-structuralist Angst—Critical Notice: John Bickle, Psychoneural Reduction; The New Wave.” Philosophy of Science 68:377–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fazekas, Peter. 2009. “Reconsidering the Role of Bridge-Laws in Intertheoretical Reductions.” Erkenntnis 71:303–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feyerabend, Paul K. 1962. “Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism.” In Scientification Explanation, Space and Time, ed. Maxwell, Grover and Feigl, Herbert, 28–97. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Feyerabend, Paul K.. 1966. “The Structure of Science.” Review of The Structure of Science, by Ernest Nagel. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 17:237–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A. 1981. Representations: Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Kenneth. 1982. “Is Intertheoretic Reduction Feasible?” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 33:17–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. 1965. Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G.. 1969. “Reduction: Ontological and Linguistic Facets.” In Philosophy, Science, and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel, ed. Morgenbesser, Sidney, Suppes, Patrick, and White, Morton, 179–99. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G., and Oppenheim, Paul. 1948. “Studies in the Logic of Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 15:135–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooker, Clifford. 1981. “Towards a General Theory of Reduction.” Pt. 1, “Historical and Scientific Setting,” pt. 2, “Identity in Reduction,” and pt. 3, “Cross-Categorial Reduction.” Dialogue 20:38–59, 201–36, 496–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoyningen-Huene, Paul. 1989. “Epistemological Reductionism in Biology: Intuitions, Explications, and Objections.” In Reductionism and Systems Theory in the Life Sciences: Some Problems and Perspectives, ed. Wuketits, Franz and Hoyningen-Huene, Paul, 29–44. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, David L. 1976. “Informal Aspects of Theory Reduction.” In PSA 1974: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, ed. Cohen, Robert S. and Michalos, A., 653–70. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Kemeny, John G., and Oppenheim, Paul. 1956. “On Reduction.” Philosophical Studies 7:6–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon. 1993. Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, Colin. 2009. “Reduction without Reductionism: A Defence of Nagel on Connectability.” Philosophical Quarterly 59:39–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Ernest. 1935. “The Logic of Reduction in the Sciences.” Erkenntnis 5:46–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Ernest. 1949. “The Meaning of Reduction in the Natural Sciences.” In Science and Civilization, ed. Stouffer, Robert C., 99–135. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Ernest. 1961. The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Explanation. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Ernest. 1970. “Issues in the Logic of Reductive Explanations.” In Mind, Science, and History, ed. Kiefer, Howard E. and Munitz, Milton K., 117–37. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Neurath, Otto. 1959. “Sociology and Physicalism.” In Logical Positivism, ed. Ayer, Alfred Jules, 282–317. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 1965. “How Not to Talk about Meaning.” In Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 2, In Honor of Philip Frank: Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science, 1962–1964, ed. Cohen, Robert S. and Wartofsky, Marx W., 205–22. New York: Humanities.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley. 1989. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Sarkar, Sahotra. 1992. “Models of Reduction and Categories of Reductionism.” Synthese 91:167–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkar, Sahotra. 1998. Genetics and Reductionism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkar, Sahotra. 2008. “Reduction.” In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science, ed. Curd, Martin and Psillos, Stathis, 425–34. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schaffner, Kenneth. 1967. “Approaches to Reduction.” Philosophy of Science 34:137–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, Kenneth. 1993. Discovery and Explanation in Biology and Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Silberstein, Michael. 2002. “Reduction, Emergence, and Explanation.” In The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science, ed. Silberstein, Michael and Machamer, Peter, 80–107. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Suppe, Frederick. 2000. “Understanding Scientific Theories: An Assessment of Developments, 1969–1998.” Philosophy of Science 67:102–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. 1972. “Complexity and Organization.” In PSA 1972: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, ed. Schaffner, Kenneth F. and Cohen, Robert S., 67–86. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C.. 1976. “Reductive Explanation: A Functional Account.” In PSA 1974: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, ed. Cohen, Robert S. and Michalos, A., 671–710. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar