Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T13:42:19.716Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Towards a General Theory of Reduction. Part III: Cross-Categorical Reduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

C.A. Hooker
C.A. Hooker
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle, Australia The University of Western Ontario
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Any theory of reduction that goes only so far as carried in Parts I and II ([165], [166]) does only half the job. Prima facie at least, there are cases of would-be reduction which seem torn between two conflicting intuitions. On the one side there is a strong intuition that reduction is involved, and a strongly retentive reduction at that. On the other side it seems that the concepts at one level cross-classify those at the other level, so that there is no way to identify properties at one level with those at the other. There is evidence to suggest that there will be no unique mental state/neural state association that can be set up, because, e.g., many different parts of the nervous system are all capable of taking over ‘control’ of the one mental function. And it is alleged that infinitely many, worse: indefinitely many, different bio-chemo-physical states could correspond to the economic property ‘has a monetary system of economic exchange’; and similarly for the property ‘has just won a game of tennis’. Yet one doesn't want an economic system or a game of tennis to be some ghostly addition to the actual bio-chemo-physical processes and events involved (cf. Rudner [188]). Similarly one hopes that neurophysiology allied with the rest of natural science will render human experience and behaviour explicable.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 1981 , pp. 496 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[143] Arbib, M., “Consciousness: The Secondary Role of Language, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. LXIX, No. 18 (1972), 579–591.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[144] Armstrong, D.M., “Materialism, Properties and Predicates”, Monist 56 (1972) 163–176CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[145] Armstrong, D.M., Materialist Theory of The Mind, New York: Humanities Press, 1968.Google Scholar
[146] Block, N.J., and Fodor, J. “What Psychological States are not”, Philosophical Review, 81 (1972), 159–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[147] Bub, J., The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[148] Causey, R.L., “Polanyion Structure and Reduction”, Synthese, 20 (1969) 230–237.Google Scholar
[149] Causey, R.L., Unity of Science, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[150] Cornman, J.W., Materialism and Sensations, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
[151] Davidson, D., “MentalEvents” (in) Foster, L., and Swanson, J.W., Experience and Theory, Amherst, Mass.: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1970.Google Scholar
[152] Dewan, E.M., “Consciousness as an Emergent Causal Agent in the Context of Control System Theory”, (in) Globus, G., Maxwell, G. and Savodnik, I., (eds.) Consciousness and the Brain, New York: Plenum, 1976.Google Scholar
[153] Dewan, E.M., “Cybernetics and Attention” (in) Evans, C.R., and Mulholland, J., (eds.) Attention in Neurophysiology, New York: Appleton, 1971.Google Scholar
[154] Elugardo, R., Functionalism and the Problem of Qualia, Ph.D. thesis, submitted 1980, University of Western Ontario.Google Scholar
[155] Fodor, J.A., “Explanations in Psychology” (in) Black, M., (ed.) Philosophy in America, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
[156] Fodor, La., Psychological Explanation, New York: Random House, 1968.Google Scholar
[157] Fodor, J.A., The Language of Thought, New York: Crowell, 1975.Google Scholar
[158] Fodor, J.A., “Computation and Complexity” (in) Savage, W., (ed.) Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science Vol. IX, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978.Google Scholar
[159] Gendron, B., “On the Relation of Neurological and Psychological Theories” (in) Cohen, R.S., and Wartofsky, N.W., (eds.) PSA 1970, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1971.Google Scholar
[160] Harper, W., and Hooker, C.A., (eds.) Foundations of Probability Theory, Statistical Inference and Statistical Theories of Science, Vol. III, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973.Google Scholar
[161] Hooker, C.A., “The Nature of Quantum Mechanical Reality: Einstein versus Bohr”, (in) Colodny, R., (ed.) Pittsburgh Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. V, 1972.Google Scholar
[162] Hooker, C.A. (Ed.) Contemporary Research in the Foundations and Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[163] Hooker, C.A. “Sellars and the Elimination of Sensa”, Philosophical Studies, 32 #4 (1977), 335–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[164] Hooker, C.A. “A Realist Doctrine of Perception and a Nihilist Doctrine of the Secondary Qualities”, Savage, C.W. (ed.) (in) Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, IX, 1978.Google Scholar
[165] Hooker, C.A. “Towards a General Theory of Reduction, Part I: Historical and Scientific Setting” in Dialogue, XX # 1 (1981), 38–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[166] Hooker, C.A. “Towards a General Theory of Reduction, Part II: Identity in Reduction” in Dialogue, XX # 2 (1981), 201–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[167] Hull, D.L., “Reduction in Genetics - Biology or Philosophy?” Philosophy of Science 39, (1972), 491–499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[168] Hull, D.L., “Reduction in Genetics - Doing the Impossible” (in) Suppes, P., (ed.) Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Vol. IV, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1973.Google Scholar
[169] Hull, D.L., Philosophy of the Biological Sciences, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974.Google Scholar
[170] Hull, D.L., “Informal Aspects of Theory Reduction” (in) Cohen, R.S. et al. (eds.) PSA 1974, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976.Google Scholar
[171] Jantsch, E., and Waddington, C.H., Evolution and Consciousness, New York: Addison-Wesley, 1976.Google Scholar
[172] Locker, A., Biogenesis, Evolution, Homeo Stasis, New York: Springer Verlag, 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[173] Lycan, W.G., and Pappas, G.S., “What is Eliminative Materialism?” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 50 (1972), 149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[174] Martin, M., “Neurophysiological Reduction and Psychological Explanation” Philosophy of the Social Sciences, I (1971), 161–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[175] Molnar, G., “Defeasible Propositions”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 45, (1967), 185–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[176] Nagel, T., “Physicalism” (in) O'Connor, J., (ed.) Modern Materialism: Readings on Mind-Body Identity, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969.Google Scholar
[177] Nelson, J., “Behaviourism is False” Journal of Philosophy, LXVI (1969), 417–451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[178] Nelson, J., “Mechanism, Functionalism, and the Identity Theory”, The Journal of Philosophy, LXXIII no. 13, (1976), 365–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[179] Pattee, H., “Physical Theories of Biological Coordination”, Quarterly Review of Biophysics, 4, (1971) 255–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[180] Pattee, H., Hierarchy Theory: The Challenge of Complex Systems, New York: George Braziller, 1973.Google Scholar
[181] Petersen, A., Quantum Physics and the Philosophical Tradition, Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1968.Google Scholar
[182] Plantinga, A., “Comments” (to Putnam, H. “The Mental Life of Some Machines”), (in) Castaneda, H., (ed.) Intentionality, Minds and Perception, Ohio: Wayne State University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
[183] Polanyi, M., “Life Transcending Physics and Chemistry”, Chemical and Engineering News, 45, (1967) 54–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[184] Polanyi, M., “Life's Irreducible Structure”, Science, 160 (1968), 1308–1312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[185] Putnam, H., “The Meaning of Meaning'” (in) Gunderson, K., (ed) Language, Mind and Knowledge, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975.Google Scholar
[186] Rosenthal, D.M., “Mentality and Neutrality”, Journal of Philosophy, LXXIII, No. 13, (1976), 386–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[187] Roth, N.M., Progress in Modern Biology: An Alternative to Reduction. Ph.D. dissertation, Chicago, 1974.Google Scholar
[188] Rudner, R.S., Philosophy of Social Science, Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966.Google Scholar
[189] Ruse, M., “Reduction in Genetics”, (in) Cohen, R.S. et al. (eds.) PSA 1974, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976.Google Scholar
[190] Ruse, M., The Philosophy of Biology, London: Hutchinson, 1973.Google Scholar
[191] Ryle, G., The Concept of Mind, London: Penguin, 1963.Google Scholar
[192] Schaffner, K.F., “Approaches to Reduction”, Philosophy of Science, 34 (1967) 137–147.Google Scholar
[193] Schaffner, K.F., “The Watson-Crick model and Reductionism”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 20 (1969) 325–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[194] Schaffner, K.F., “Reductionism in Biology: Prospects and Problems” (in) Cohen, R.S. et al. (eds.) PSA 1974, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976.Google Scholar
[195] Wimsatt, W., “Complexity and Organisation” (in) Schaffner, K.S., and Cohen, R.S., (eds.) PSA 1972, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974.Google Scholar
[196] Wimsatt, W., “Reductive Explanation: A Functional Account” (in) Cohen, R.S. et al. , (eds.) PSA 1974, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976Google Scholar
[197] Wimsatt, W., “Reductionism, Levels of Organisation and the Mind-Body Problem” (in) Globus, G., Maxwell, G., & Savodnik, I., (eds.) Consciousness and the Brain, New York: Plenum Press, 1976.Google Scholar
[198] Winch, P., The Idea of a Social Science, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958.Google Scholar