New Wave Psychophysical Reductionism and the Methodological Caveats
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research March 1, 1996 DOI: 10.2307/2108465 (opens in new tab)
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AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 14 |
| Key points | Argues that a new brand of psychophysical reductionism, based on a novel account of theory reduction, reformulates the reductionist thesis as an empirical prediction that developed psychological theories will ultimately reduce to developed cognitive and computational neuroscience theories. The author contends that recent neuroscience work already demonstrates reductive potential, countering the view that reductionism is naive. |
Abstract
A number of influences have combined to make reductionism an unpopular position in recent philosophy of mind and psychology. Davidson's Principle of the Anomalousness of the Mental, the multiple realizability arguments of Putnam, Fodor, and others, and attempts to characterize supervenience or dependency as the appropriate nonreductive relation to seek between psychological and physical kinds are the most well-known objections (Kim 1989). And these have found their mark. Being a psychophysical reductionist nowadays, as Jaegwon Kim aptly puts it, a bit like being a logical positivist or a member of the Old Left-an aura of doctrinaire naivete hangs over such a person (1989, 32). This aura is mistaken, however, in light of the development over the past decade of a brand of psychophysical reductionism, built upon a novel general account of theory reduction in science (Hooker 1981; P. M. Churchland 1979, sec. 11 and chap. 4, and 1985; P. S. Churchland 1986, chaps. 7, 9; Enc 1983; Bickle 1991, 1992c). From this new wave, the reductionist thesis gets reformulated as. the broadly empirical prediction that developed psychological theories ultimately will stand in the intertheoretic reduction relation (construed in the novel fashion) to developed counterpart theories from cognitive and computational neuroscience.1 The empirical evidence mustered in defense of this prediction is drawn from work now being pursued in the relevant sciences; and some work from recent neuroscience is already demonstrating reductive potential of the relevant sort for sophisticated psychological