Abstract
Charles Taylor, in a paper entitled ‘Mind-Body Identity: A Side Issue’?,1 argues that those who oppose mind-body identity can grant to its defendants all the concessions they desire and still maintain the theses they wish to defend: that, in other words, there is no substantive disagreement between the contestants in the case, and so philosophers of mind would do better to ignore this alleged dispute and turn to still open and more interesting questions. A similar situation obtains, I propose to argue, with respect to the much debated question of the reduction of theories, in particular, the question of the reducibility or the irreducibility of biology to physics.
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References
C. Taylor, ‘Mind-Body Identity: A Side Issue?’, in Philosophical Review 76 (1967), 201–213.
F. Crick, Of Molecules and Men, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1966.
R. Schubert-Soldern, Mechanism and Vitalism (transl. by C. E. Robin), University of Notre Dame, South Bend, 1962.
E. Nagel, The Structure of Science, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1961.
P. Oppenheim and H. Putman, ‘Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis’, in Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science, //, Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem (ed. by H. Feigl, M. Scriven, and G. Maxwell ), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1963, pp. 3–36.
Kant of course held that there would not be a Newton of a blade of grass; the question for him was not arguable. Had he thought it arguable, however, he would, one supposes, have reversed the two theses, taking reducibility, with its ‘materialist’ and anti-theistic implications, as antithesis and the more conservative alternative as thesis. But not only can I say what I want to more easily if I take it the other way around - I would also suggest that if in our situation any ‘religious’ bias comes into play, it is not so much the opposition of religion to science as the religion of science that is involved. What used to be the ‘new corpuscular philosophy’ has become the faith of the orthodox, which a more pluralistic conception of reality appears to challenge.
M. Polanyi, ‘Life’s Irreducible Structure’, Science 160 (1968), 1308–12. Essentially the same argument has been stated, for example, by
David Hawkins in The Language of Nature, W. H. Freeman, London and San Francisco, 1964;
by H. Pattee in Towards a Theoretical Biology, I and II (ed. by C. H. Waddington), Edinburgh University Press, 1968 and 1969, respectively; a similar argument is stated
by C. P. Raven in ‘The Formalization of Finality’, Folia Biotheoretica B 5 (1960), 168.
M. Polanyi, ‘Life’s Irreducible Structure’, Science 160 (1968), p. 1309.
by C. P. Raven in ‘The Formalization of Finality’, Folia Biotheoretica B 5 (1960), 168.
R. Rosen, ‘Some Comments on the Physico-Chemical Description of Biological Activity’, in Journal of Theoretical Biology 18 (1968), 380–6.
R. Harré, Principles of Scientific Thinking, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1970.
Cf. H. Reichenbach, The Philosophy of Space and Time, Dover, New York, 1958.
U. Neisser, Cognitive Psychology, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1966, p. 20.
C. Hempel and P. Oppenheim, ‘Studies in the Logic of Explanation’, Philosophy of Science 15 (1948), 135-75, p. 137; this also appeared in The Structure of Scientific Thought (ed. by E. H. Madden ), Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, 1960, pp. 19–29.
C. Hempel, ‘The Theoretician’s Dilemma’, in Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science, II, Concepts, Theories and the Mind-Body Problem (ed. by H. Feigl, M. Scriven and G. Maxwell ), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1963, pp. 37–98.
E. Nagel, The Structure of Science, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1961, pp. 338–45.
C. C. Gillispie, The Edge of Objectivity, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1960.
Cf., e. g., J. M. Burgers, Experience and Conceptual Activity, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1965
M. Capek, Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics, Van Nostrand Press, Princeton, 1961.
Oppenheim and Putman, op. cit., p. 9.
G. S. Fraenkel and D. L. Gunn, Orientation of Animals, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1940.
Cf. H. Pattee, ‘Physical Problems of Heredity and Evolution’, in Towards a Theoretical Biology, II (ed. by C. H. Waddington ), Edinburgh University Press, 1969, pp. 227–32.
R. H. Gregory, ‘The Brain as an Engineering Problem’, in Current Problems in Animal Behaviour (ed. by W. H. Thorpe and O. L. Zangwill ), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1961, pp. 307–30.
C. Longuet-Higgins, ‘What Biology Is About’, in Towards a Theoretical Biology, II (ed. by C. H. Waddington ), Edinburgh University Press, 1969, pp. 227 - 32.
R. Rosen, ‘Some Comments on the Physico-Chemical Description of Biological Activity’, in Journal of Theoretical Biology 18 (1968) p. 380.
R. Rosen, ‘Some Comments on the Physico-Chemical Description of Biological Activity’, in Journal of Theoretical Biology 18 (1968) p. 386.
R. Rosen, ‘Some Comments on the Physico-Chemical Description of Biological Activity’, in Journal of Theoretical Biology 18 (1968) p. 386.
R. Rosen, ‘Some Comments on the Physico-Chemical Description of Biological Activity’, in Journal of Theoretical Biology 18 (1968) p. 386.
R. Rosen, ‘Some Comments on the Physico-Chemical Description of Biological Activity’, in Journal of Theoretical Biology 18 (1968) p. 386.
R. Rosen, ‘Some Comments on the Physico-Chemical Description of Biological Activity’, in Journal of Theoretical Biology 18 (1968) p. 386.
J. J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1966.
J. J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1966, Table 1, p. 50.
All of the above are taken from Gibson’s Table 1, loc. cit.
J. J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1966, pp. 221 - 2.
J. J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1966, see for example p. 215 on perception of the blackness of a surface with varying illumination, depth, information and so on.
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© 1974 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Grene, M. (1974). Reducibility: Another Side Issue?. In: The Understanding of Nature. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2224-8_4
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