Philosophy 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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Evgeny Morozov on Reductionism - Dictionary of Arguments
I 87 Reductionism/Reduction/Information/Morozov: The problem with Silicon Valley's desire to organize the world's information (...) is that one tends to succumb to the worst excesses of "information reductionism" - a tendency to look at all knowledge through the prism of information, that "a series of indices" should adequately describe the present phenomenon", as sociologist Nikolas Tsoukas writes. (1) The quest to organize the knowledge of the world cannot go on without at least doing some violence to the knowledge it seeks to organize. >Information, >False information, >Social Media, >Social Networks, >Networks, >Media. Information reductionism/Tsouka's thesis: Information reductionism thrives whenever people view ideas as autonomous objects that can be exchanged between sender and receiver in their original form. Ideas are considered to be completely independent, not only of the infrastructures they transport, but also of each other. This is a very naive look at the way people and institutions communicate. Transparency/Information/Mark Fenster: The legal scholar Mark Fenster has argued that "the transparency theory at its core takes the form of a classical, linear communication model that postulates a simple process of transferring information from a source to a target audience via the medium of a message. Such a superficial and one-dimensional cybernetic interpretation of communication blinds transparency enthusiasts, as Fenster puts it, "the proliferating, often incoherent bureaucracy of the modern government, the smoothness of information", the elusive and frustrating abilities of the public and, ultimately, the difficulties of the communication process itself. (2) In reality, unfortunately, there is rarely any information that has been revealed by various transparency studies in the objective, virgin state that information reducers imagine. Thus, as Fenster argues,"every message" containing government information is produced and exists only within a political and regulatory framework that shapes its emergence and circulates only within a mediated environment that transforms it in the process of delivery. >Information/Lakoff. I 89 Information reductionism/Morozov: he uses the terms "transparency" and "openness" ambiguously, in relation to Open Source (software) or accessibility of general information.(3) >Open source, >Software. 1. Haridimos Tsoukas, “The Tyranny of Light: The Temptations and the Paradoxes of the Information Society”, Futures 29, no. 9 (November 1997): 827– 843. 2. Mark Fenster, “The Opacity of Transparency,” Iowa Law Review 91 (2005): 885– 949. 3. Christopher M. Kelty, “Conceiving Open Systems,” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 30 (2009): 139._____________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. |
Morozov I Evgeny Morozov To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism New York 2014 |
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> Counter arguments against Morozov
> Counter arguments in relation to Reductionism
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-19