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Reductionism and its heuristics: Making methodological reductionism honest

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Abstract

Methodological reductionists practice ‘wannabe reductionism’. They claim that one should pursue reductionism, but never propose how. I integrate two strains in prior work to do so. Three kinds of activities are pursued as “reductionist”. “Successional reduction” and inter-level mechanistic explanation are legitimate and powerful strategies. Eliminativism is generally ill-conceived. Specific problem-solving heuristics for constructing inter-level mechanistic explanations show why and when they can provide powerful and fruitful tools and insights, but sometimes lead to erroneous results. I show how traditional metaphysical approaches fail to engage how science is done. The methods used do so, and support a pragmatic and non-eliminativist realism.

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    William C. Wimsatt

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Wimsatt, W.C. Reductionism and its heuristics: Making methodological reductionism honest. Synthese 151, 445–475 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9017-0

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