Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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Reduction, philosophy: reduction is the tracing back of a set of statements to another set of statements by rephrasing and replacing concepts of a subject domain by concepts from another subject domain. There must be conditions for the substitutability of a concept from the first domain by a concept from the second domain. An example of a reduction is the tracing back of mental concepts to physical concepts or to behavior. See also bridge laws, reductionism, translation, identity theory, materialism, physical/psychical, physicalism, eliminationism, functionalism, roles, indeterminacy.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Robert Stalnaker on Reduction - Dictionary of Arguments

I 10
Reduction/Stalnaker: e.g. the reduction of theories: the terms of a less fundamental theory are described in terms of the more fundamental - this demonstrates that the former can be derived from the latter.
>Derivability
.
I 88/89
Reductionism/reduction/Stalnaker: a) Semantically: semantically, we replace expressions by expressions in reductionism. Then, there is a relation between theories. b) Metaphysically: metaphysically, there is a relation between sets of properties or facts, not theories. Reduction may fail: e.g. the reduction of meteorology to physics. Reason: the reason for this is that physics does not provide a complete description of the world. Supervenience: supervenience helps to distinguish the important from the semantic (irrelevant) part of a reductionist theory.
>Supervenience, >Facts.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Stalnaker I
R. Stalnaker
Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003


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