Not full reductions, but better explanations: Comment on “Neuroontology, neurobiological naturalism, and consciousness: A challenge to scientific reduction and a solution” by Todd E. Feinberg

Abstract

Feinberg (2012) [8] suggests that science so far cannot “reduce critical features of consciousness to neural processes.” But this poses an unrealistic standard. If science required full reductive explanations, neither Newton nor Darwin would be remembered today, since neither gave a reductive account of gravity or heredity. Indeed, we do not have such full reductions today. Useful theories, like Darwinʼs, are often not reductionistic to biological cells like neurons, though they can offer explanations of basic puzzles. Even theoretical physics cannot explain mountain avalanches and oak trees at the level of fundamental particles. Yet physics is a widely admired model of scientific theory. Judging by more modest historical standards we are making steady progress on Feinbergʼs four basic questions.