Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to argue for a non-reductivism that considers the scope of reductive explanations an open empirical question. Non-reductivism in this sense has to be distinguished from both reductivism and anti-reductivism. I start with the question why many contemporary philosophers consider reductivism a plausible or even an inevitable position. Given that there is hardly any inductive evidence for the truth of reductivism, I suggest that the main motivation for reductivism is the metaphysical idea of the ontological priority of the physical. This idea can be developed in a variety of ways. For example, one can specify the priority of the physical by arguing that only physical entities fundamentally exist. While this specification directly contradicts conceptual relativity, there are also more moderate (e.g. supervenience-based) specifications of the idea of ontological priority. I consider different specifications and argue that none of them are (a) compatible with conceptual relativity, (b) non-circular, and (c) strong enough to justify reductivism. I therefore conclude that conceptual relativity undermines the crucial motivation of reductivism and leads to non-reductivism.
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Notes
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Philosophers of mind often refer to the demise of vitalism and “the explanation of life” in rather questionable ways that do not do justice to historical vitalist positions (cf. Normandin and Wolfe 2013). For the sake of the argument, however, I will leave this piece of whig history unquestioned.
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In the spirit of a strong “naturalism of scientific practice” one could also challenge the intelligibility of metaphysical supervience because of its reliance on a dubious notion of metaphysically possible worlds. For the sake of the argument, however, I will set aside this general modal skepticism and grant metaphysicians that there is some stable notion of metaphysical supervenience.
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Abney et al.’s (2014) discussion of joint perceptual decision-making provides a helpful example of explanatory pluralism and of the crucial importance of non-reductive forms of integration in cognitive science. Their discussion focuses on three approaches to decision making (“behavioral/decision-making”, “linguistic/confidence”, and “physical/acoustic energy”) and the relations between them. Although the approaches cannot be reduced to each other, there are many substantive forms of theory integration. The different approaches do not only provide substantive and unique information about joint decision-making but also illuminate each other’s research results. As Abney et al. put it: “If none of these three approaches informed each other, various research opportunities crossing scales and mixing methods would be lost. For example, can people with asymmetric perceptual capabilities effectively overcome their difference by communicating about common environmental constraints (Approach 1) and what do the language properties (Approach 2) look like when they successfully coordinate?” (2014, 9) The example of joint perceptual decision-making is therefore a helpful reminder that scientific practice is often concerned with meaningful forms of integration and explanation that have little use for the opposition between reductionism and anti-reductionism.
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Ludwig, D. (2015). The Argument from Ontological Non-fundamentalism. In: A Pluralist Theory of the Mind. European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22738-2_7
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