The Ontic Account of Explanatory Reduction

Abstract

In Chapter 6, I develop an ontic account of explanatory reduction in biology by analyzing paradigmatic and important examples of reductive (and non-reductive) explanations and discussions about reductionism from biological practice. I start with briefly specifying two concepts that occupy center stage in my account: the concept of a biological part (or of a part-whole relation) and the concept of levels of organization. On the basis of these conceptual clarifications I then answer the central question of my book, namely what are the characteristics that determine whether a biological explanation is reductive or not. The main result of my analysis of biological practice will be that reductive explanations in biology possess three features (two of which are necessary conditions, one of which is only a typical feature that most reductive explanations exhibit): they display a lower-level character, focus on factors that are internal to the biological object of interest, and describe the biological parts of this object only as parts in isolation.