Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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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.
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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

Richard Rorty on Reductionism - Dictionary of Arguments

I 190
Justification: the traditional concept of justification in epistemology is reductionistic and atomistic. >reduction
.
Reductionism/Freud: he does not tell us that art is actually sublimation, that philosophical system formation is just paranoia or religion merely misguided memory.
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IV 48 ff
"Anti-reductionism": reduction is no relationship between ontological categories, but only between linguistic circumstances.
a) Who (linguistically) speaks of X does not necessarily speak of Y.
b) Every description in an X terminology applies only to things to which also a description in a Y terminology refers. But this type of reduction does not mean that "X things are nothing but Y things".
There is nothing that could show this. "An X is what it is, and no other thing." (Buttler).
The only possibility to show that there are no X things would be to show that there are no such sentences! (X and Y are only stylistic variants).
Folk Psychology: will continue to be the most appropriate way to talk about us. We will keep "beliefs" and "desires" in our vocabulary. They are proven tools.
>Folk psychology.
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VI 138f
Def Reductionism/Rorty: there is not a single network, but also a single, privileged description of all entities included in the network. The reductionist believes that we do not only need causal unity, but also unity of explanation: A process to make all attempts at explanation commensurable and provide true nomological statements through which all these entities (thoughts, neurons, sins, hormones, actions and movements, persons and organisms) are interlinked.
RortyVsReduktionism: we have learned from Davidson to be content with token-token identities between differently described objects.
>Donald Davidson, cf. >Token-physicalism, >Type/token identity.
VI 139
Reductionism/Rorty: believes that there is only one correct description - so that all explanations are comparable.
>Explanation.

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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.

Rorty I
Richard Rorty
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton/NJ 1979
German Edition:
Der Spiegel der Natur Frankfurt 1997

Rorty II
Richard Rorty
Philosophie & die Zukunft Frankfurt 2000

Rorty II (b)
Richard Rorty
"Habermas, Derrida and the Functions of Philosophy", in: R. Rorty, Truth and Progress. Philosophical Papers III, Cambridge/MA 1998
In
Philosophie & die Zukunft, , Frankfurt/M. 2000

Rorty II (c)
Richard Rorty
Analytic and Conversational Philosophy Conference fee "Philosophy and the other hgumanities", Stanford Humanities Center 1998
In
Philosophie & die Zukunft, , Frankfurt/M. 2000

Rorty II (d)
Richard Rorty
Justice as a Larger Loyalty, in: Ronald Bontekoe/Marietta Stepanians (eds.) Justice and Democracy. Cross-cultural Perspectives, University of Hawaii 1997
In
Philosophie & die Zukunft, , Frankfurt/M. 2000

Rorty II (e)
Richard Rorty
Spinoza, Pragmatismus und die Liebe zur Weisheit, Revised Spinoza Lecture April 1997, University of Amsterdam
In
Philosophie & die Zukunft, , Frankfurt/M. 2000

Rorty II (f)
Richard Rorty
"Sein, das verstanden werden kann, ist Sprache", keynote lecture for Gadamer’ s 100th birthday, University of Heidelberg
In
Philosophie & die Zukunft, , Frankfurt/M. 2000

Rorty II (g)
Richard Rorty
"Wild Orchids and Trotzky", in: Wild Orchids and Trotzky: Messages form American Universities ed. Mark Edmundson, New York 1993
In
Philosophie & die Zukunft, , Frankfurt/M. 2000

Rorty III
Richard Rorty
Contingency, Irony, and solidarity, Chambridge/MA 1989
German Edition:
Kontingenz, Ironie und Solidarität Frankfurt 1992

Rorty IV (a)
Richard Rorty
"is Philosophy a Natural Kind?", in: R. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Philosophical Papers Vol. I, Cambridge/Ma 1991, pp. 46-62
In
Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, , Stuttgart 1993

Rorty IV (b)
Richard Rorty
"Non-Reductive Physicalism" in: R. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Philosophical Papers Vol. I, Cambridge/Ma 1991, pp. 113-125
In
Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, , Stuttgart 1993

Rorty IV (c)
Richard Rorty
"Heidegger, Kundera and Dickens" in: R. Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others. Philosophical Papers Vol. 2, Cambridge/MA 1991, pp. 66-82
In
Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, , Stuttgart 1993

Rorty IV (d)
Richard Rorty
"Deconstruction and Circumvention" in: R. Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others. Philosophical Papers Vol. 2, Cambridge/MA 1991, pp. 85-106
In
Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, , Stuttgart 1993

Rorty V (a)
R. Rorty
"Solidarity of Objectivity", Howison Lecture, University of California, Berkeley, January 1983
In
Solidarität oder Objektivität?, , Stuttgart 1998

Rorty V (b)
Richard Rorty
"Freud and Moral Reflection", Edith Weigert Lecture, Forum on Psychiatry and the Humanities, Washington School of Psychiatry, Oct. 19th 1984
In
Solidarität oder Objektivität?, , Stuttgart 1988

Rorty V (c)
Richard Rorty
The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy, in: John P. Reeder & Gene Outka (eds.), Prospects for a Common Morality. Princeton University Press. pp. 254-278 (1992)
In
Solidarität oder Objektivität?, , Stuttgart 1988

Rorty VI
Richard Rorty
Truth and Progress, Cambridge/MA 1998
German Edition:
Wahrheit und Fortschritt Frankfurt 2000


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