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On Some Patterns of Reduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Clark Glymour
Clark Glymour*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Abstract

The notion of reduction in the natural sciences has been assimilated to the notion of inter-theoretical explanation. Many philosophers of science (following Nagel) have held that the apparently ontological issues involved in reduction should be replaced by analyses of the syntactic and semantic connections involved in explaining one theory on the basis of another. The replacement does not seem to have been especially successful, for we still lack a plausible account of inter-theoretical explanation. I attempt to provide one.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , September 1970 , pp. 340 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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References

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