Psychology Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Reductionism, philosophy: reductionism is a collective term for attempts, to either trace back statements in a subject area to statements from a sub-area of this subject area or equating statements of a subject area with statements of another subject area. The main point here is the justification of such transfers. Reductionism in the narrower sense is the thesis that reduction is possible. Typical reductionisms exist in the domain of the philosophy of mind. See also holism, eliminativism, materialism, physicalism, functionalism._____________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. | |||
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Anita Avramides on Reductionism - Dictionary of Arguments
I 96 Reductionism/Grice/Avramides: the real bone of contention between reductive and anti-reductive Griceans is the profound epistemic asymmetry - (that thoughts could be known without language). For symmetry/asymmetry: >Terminology/Avramides. Both, reductionism and anti-reductionism are agains superficial epistemic aymmetry: Def Superficial Epistemic Asymmetry/Radical Interpetation/Avramides: Thesis: that we can solve the problem of Radical interpretation by understanding the foreign language through firstly learning the beliefs and intentions ((s) without language, because the psychological concepts are more fundamental). >Avramides on Grice, >Thinking without language. I 96 DavidsonVsReductionism: of the semantic on the mental. - Without knowledge of the language beliefs cannot be verified. The method of radical interpetation (RI) fails: you cannot first establish foreign beliefs and intentions. >Radical interpretation. I 112 Reductionism/Avramides: must accept thinking without language. Antireductionism: must deny just that. I 127f Mind/AvramidesVsReductionism: Thesis: the image of the reductionism of the objective mind is wrong. - It goes back to its distinction between superficial and deep epistemic asymmetry. I 130 Avramides Thesis: deep epistemic symmetry does not include ontological symmetry (despite Davidson). Mind/Avramides:The right (subjective) image of the mind requires the semantic and the psychological to be understood on the same level. >Meaning theory. I 128 Summary/Antireductionism/Avramides: is the right about how we can understand propositional attitudes - Reductionism: is right about what propositional attitudes are. I 166 AvramidesVsReductionism: overlooks the fact that we have to characterize behavior semantically at some point. Normal evidence is the only means to maintain the thesis that semantic and psychological concepts are on the same level. I 168 The dispute over reductionism is about epistemic, not ontological questions. >Epistemic/ontologic. I 166 Grice: Thesis: the psychological is an essential part of the semantic. Reductionism/Avramides: the reductionism denies that! Thinking without language: if we attribute it, the semantic and the psychological may not be very interdependent. Solution/AvramidesVsReductionism: behavior is observable even with speechless creatures. - This forms part of our concept of the psychological. >Animals, cf. >Animal language. I 167 Manifestation/Avramides: it would be wrong to say that it must be more complex if the attributed thoughts are more complex. More complex is rather a linguistic behavior. >Compositionality, >Complexity. The reductive Gricean accepts deep epistemic asymmetry - the antireductionist denies it. >Terminology/Avramides. VsReductionism: with that he has nothing more to do with interpretation and understanding. - - - Graeser I 128 AvramidesVsReductionism/Graeser: reductionism disregards the intimate connection between the psychological and the semantic and ultimately does nothing to contribute to the clarification of the mind and the thoughts._____________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. |
Avr I A. Avramides Meaning and Mind Boston 1989 Grae I A. Graeser Positionen der Gegenwartsphilosophie. München 2002 |
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> Counter arguments against Avramides
> Counter arguments in relation to Reductionism
