Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts. Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide an explanation in terms of ever-smaller entities. Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb an older one, but reduces it to more basic terms ...
Nomological determinism is the most common form of causal determinism and is generally synonymous with physical determinism. This is the notion that the past and the present dictate the future entirely and necessarily by rigid natural laws and that every occurrence inevitably results from prior events.
It was described by Harré as the "best single book on the philosophy of science". [6] Nagel's discussions of reductionism and holism and teleological and non-teleological explanations have been praised by Hofstadter, [7] while his discussion of the "dispute over the nature of theories and theoretical terms" has been praised by Scruton. [8]
Lewontin, Rose and Kamin identify themselves as "respectively an evolutionary geneticist, a neurobiologist, and a psychologist." They criticize biological determinism and reductionism, and state that they share a commitment to the creation of a socialist society and a recognition that "a critical science is an integral part of the struggle to create that society".
The notion of reductionism supplements physical causal closure with the claim that all events ultimately can be reduced to physical events. Under these circumstances, mental events are a subset of physical events and caused by them.
In philosophy of science, intertheoretic reduction occurs when a reducing theory makes predictions that perfectly or almost perfectly match the predictions of a reduced theory, while the reducing theory explains or predicts a wider range of phenomena under more general conditions.
Sterelny notes that these debates remain alive and developing, with no final adjudication possible as yet. "But we can say something about how the argument has developed." (p. 170) He claims that "the idea that gene-selectionist views of evolution are tacitly dependent on reductionism and genetic determinism is a mistake.
Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, [1] is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning. [2]