Hostname: page-component-669899f699-swprf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-28T00:18:05.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reductive Explanation: A Functional Account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

William C. Wimsatt
William C. Wimsatt*
Affiliation:
Dept. of Philosophy, The University of Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Philosophical discussions of reduction seem at odds or unsettled on a number of questions:

  1. (i) Is it a relation between real or between reconstructed theories, and if the latter, how much reconstruction is appropriate? Or is reduction best construed as a relation between theories at all?

  2. (ii) Is it primarily connected with theory succession, with theoretical explanation, or with both?

  3. (iii) Is translatability in principle sufficient, or must we have the translations in hand, and if the former, how do we judge the possibility of translation when we don’t have one?

  4. (iv) What is the point of defending the formal model of reduction if it doesn’t actually happen (Hull, Ruse), or if the defense has the consequence that if reductions occur, they are trivial and uninformative (Hull), or merely incidental consequences of the purposeful activity of the scientist qua scientist in devising explanations (Schaffner)?

Type
Symposium: History and Philosophy of Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1974 , 1974 , pp. 671 - 710
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

The major portion of this paper was written while I was a visiting research fellow in Humanities, Science, and Technology at Cornell University. I wish to thank the program and especially Max Black and Stuart Brown for their support.

References

Boyd, Richard: 1972, ‘Determinism, Laws, and Predictability in Principle’ ,Philosophy of Science 39, No. 4 (December), pp. 431–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Richard: 1973, ‘Realism, Underdetermination, and a Causal Theory of Evidence’, Nous 7, No. 1 (March), pp. 1–12.Google Scholar
Boyd, Richard: 1974, ‘Materialism Without Reductionism: Non-Humean Causation and the Evidence for Physicalism’, mimeographed draft, 140 pp.Google Scholar
Bronowski, Jakob: 1970, ‘New Concepts in the Evolution of Complexity: Stratified Stability and Unbounded Plans’, Synthese 21, pp. 228–246.10.1007/BF00413548CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Donald T.: 1974a, ‘Evolutionary Epistemology’, in Schilpp, P. A., ed., The Philosophy of Karl Popper, v. 1, (LaSalle Illinois: Open Court), pp. 413–463.Google Scholar
Campbell, Donald T.: 1974b, “Downwards Causation’ in Hierarchically Organized Biological Systems’, in Ayala, F. J. and Dobzhnazky, T., eds., Studies in the Philosophy of Biology, (University of California Press: Berkeley), pp. 179–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, Elof A.: 1966, The Gene: A Critical History, (Philadelphia: Saunders).Google Scholar
Causey, R. W.: 1972, ‘Attribute-Identities in Micro-Reductions’, Journal of Philosophy 69, No. 14, (August 3), pp. 407–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dinman, Bertram D.: 1972, “Non-Concept’ of’No-Threshold’ Chemicals in the Environment’ ,Science 175, (February 4), pp. 495–497.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elsasser, Walter M.: 1965, Atom and Organism, (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A.: 1974, ‘Special Sciences (Or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis)’ ,Synthese 28, pp. 97–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, Clark: 1975, ‘Relevant Evidence’, Journal of Philosophy 72, (August 14), pp. 403–425.10.2307/2025011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haldane, J. S.: 1914, Mechanism, Life and Personality, (New York: Dutton).Google Scholar
Hull, David L.: 1972, ‘Reduction in Genetics Biology or Philosophy?’, Philosophy of Science 39, (December), pp. 491–499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, David L.: 1974, Philosophy of Biological Science, (jPrentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs).Google Scholar
Hull, David L.: 1976, ‘Informal Aspects of Theory Reduction’ this volume, p. 653.10.1007/978-94-010-1449-6_37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, G. E.: 1964, ‘The Influence of the Environment’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, v. 51, pp. 930–934.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kauffman, Stuart A.: 1972, ‘Articulation of Parts Explanation in Biology and the Rational Search for Them’ in PSA-1970, R. C., Buck and R. S., Cohen, eds.,Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, v. 8, pp. 257–272.10.1007/978-94-010-3142-4_18CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon: 1964, ‘Inference, Explanation and Prediction’ Journal of Philosophy 61, No. 12, (July 11), pp. 360–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon: 1966, ‘On the Psycho-Physical Identity Thesis’ American Philosophical Quarterly 3, pp. 227–235.Google Scholar
Lewontin, Richard C: 1974,The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change,(New York: Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Maull, , 1974; see Roth, 1974.Google Scholar
Minsky, Marvin, and Papert, Seymour: 1969, Perceptrons: A Study in Computational Geometry, (Cambridge: M.I.T. University Press).Google Scholar
Muller, Herman J.: 1920, ‘Are the Factors of Heredity Arranged in a Line?’ American Naturalist 54, (March-April), pp. 97–121.10.1086/279743CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Ernest: 1961, The Structure of Science, (New York: Harcourt).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nickles, Thomas: 1973, ‘Two Concepts of Inter-theoretic Reduction’ Journal of Philosophy 70, No. 7, (April 12), pp. 181–201.10.2307/2024906CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nickles, Thomas: 1976, ‘Theory Generalization, Problem Reduction, and the Unity of Science’ this volume, p. 33.Google Scholar
Prandtl, Ludwig, and Tietjens, O. G.: 1957, Fundamentals of Aero and Hydro-mechanics, (New York: Dover) (reprint of original volume published in 1934 by McGraw-Hill).Google Scholar
Roth, Nancy Maull: 1974, ‘Progress in Modern Biology: An Alternative to Reduction’ Ph.D. dissertation, Committee on Conceptual Foundations of Science, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Ruse, Michael: 1971, ‘Reduction, Replacement, and Molecular Biology’ Dialectica 25, pp. 39–72.10.1111/j.1746-8361.1971.tb00591.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruse, Michael: 1973,The Philosophy of Biology,(London: Hutchinson University Library).Google Scholar
Ruse, Michael: 1976, ‘Reduction in Genetics’ this volume, p. 633.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C : 1971,Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance,(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press).10.2307/j.ctt6wrd9pCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, Kenneth F.: 1967, ‘Approaches to Reduction’ Philosophy of Science 34, (June), pp. 137–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. F.: 1969, ‘The Watson-Crick Model and Reductionism’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 20, pp. 325–348.10.1093/bjps/20.4.325CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. F.: 1974a, ‘Logic of Discovery and Justification in Regulatory Genetics’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 4, No. 4, pp. 349–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. F.: 1974b, ‘The Peripherality of Reductionism in the Development of Molecular Biology’ Journal of the History of Biology 7, No. 1 (Spring), pp. 111–139.10.1007/BF00179296CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. F.: 1976, ‘Reductionism in Biology: Prospects and Problems’ this volume, p. 613.10.1007/978-94-010-1449-6_35CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shimony, Abner: 1971, ‘Perception from an Evolutionary Point of View’ Journal of Philosophy 68, No. 19, (October 7), pp. 571–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, Herbert A.: 1969,The Sciences of the Artificial, (Cambridge: M.I.T. University Press).Google Scholar
Sklar, Lawrence: 1967, ‘Types of Inter-Theoretic Reduction” ,British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 18, No. 2, (August), pp. 106–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, Sklar: 1973, ‘Statistical Explanation and Ergodic Theory’ Philosophy of Science 40, (June), pp. 194–212.Google Scholar
Thompson, D’Arcy W.: 1961,On Growth and Form, abridged edition, edited with commentary by J. T., Bonner, (London: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Waismann, Friedrich: 1951, ‘Verifiability’ in A. G. N., Flew, ed.,Logic and Language, (first series), (London: Blackwell), pp. 117–144.Google Scholar
Waismann, F.: 1953, ‘Language Strata’ in A. G. N., Flew, ed.,Logic and Language, (second series), (London: Blackwell), pp. 11–31.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. L. K.: 1973,Towards an Understanding of the Mechanisms of Heredity, third revised edition, (New York: St. Martin’s Press).Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C : 1974, ‘Complexity and Organization’ in Schaffner, K. F. and Cohen, R. S., eds.,PSA-1972, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, v. 20, (Dordrecht: Reidel), pp. 67–86.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C: 1975, ‘Reductionism, Levels of Organization, and the Mind-Body Problem’ inConsciousness and the Brain, edited by G. G. Globus, , Maxwell, G., and Savodnik, I., (New York: Plenum, 1976), pp. 205–267.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C : 1976, ‘Correspondence versus Identity and the Problem of Spatiality in the Localization of the Genome and Determining the Configuration of the Mental Realm’ invited address, Section VIII (Foundations of Biology),5th International Congress on Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, London, Ontario, August 31, 1975. To be published in the proceedings, edited by Hintikka, Jaako, by Reidel, D. (Dordrecht).Google Scholar