Reductionist Theories Research Articles

A Critique of State and Law in Hans Kelsen’s Thought from Herman Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze the theoretical commitments and the legal-political problems of Hans Kelsen’s thought from the perspective of Herman Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. It seeks to answer the following question: Why was the relationship between state and law in Kelsen’s thought unable to protect civil society and individuals from the power of the state? The argument, based on Herman Dooyeweerd’s philosophy, is that Kelsen was trapped in an insurmountable theoretical dialectic or tension between nature and freedom. In pursuit of methodological purity, Kelsen reduced the state and law to the logical aspect and morality to the historical aspect. Analyzing Kelsen’s thought from the point of view of Dooyeweerd’s transcendental critique, this paper demonstrates that Kelsen’s commitments with respect to reality led him to a reductionist theory that rendered society defenseless against the power of the state.

Two kinds of failure in joint action: On disrespect and directed duties

Abstract I identify two kinds of failure in joint action. First, we can fail to ‘do our part’, that is, fail to contribute to fulfilling the joint intention. Second, we can fail to respect our collaborators. Recognizing the distinct natures of both normative relations helps us overcome a key challenge to a reductionist theory of collective intentionality posed by Margaret Gilbert. According to this objection, we have obligations towards others even in immoral joint actions – a claim that was recently supported experimentally. Except for a handful of experimental papers, work on the normativity in joint intention has stagnated. I hope the distinction breathes fresh air into the theoretical and empirical debate.

A Systems-Based Approach to Criminal Thinking and Behavior.

Nearly all theoretical approaches and therapies to criminal thinking and behavior have been reductionist, meaning that they focus on a part or a subsystem of a system or a supra-system. While these reductionist theories and therapies have provided, and continue to provide, valuable information and rehabilitation, they offer a limited view of criminality and rehabilitation as a consequence of reductionism. Using general systems theory (GST), this article presents an integrated and interdisciplinary theoretical approach to criminal thinking and behavior. This article posits that criminality can be better understood, prevented, and treated using GST.

Perception and illusion: replies to Sethi, Speaks and Cutter

ABSTRACT I reply to comments on my book Perception (Routledge 2021) by Umrao Sethi, Jeff Speaks and Brian Cutter. Sethi objects to my representational view of perception on the ground that that having an experience of a color or shape can enable you to know what that color or shape is like only if it is actually present in the experience. Speaks has a very interesting discussion of my puzzle of the laws of appearance for the representational view. And Cutter asks what I have against 'neural sense datum theory'. In my responses, I try to take the discussion forward. At the end, I develop a new argument against reductive physicalist theories of sensible qualities.

Joint Attention as the Base of Common Knowledge and Collective Intentionality

I argue that joint attention solves the “base problem” as it arises for Schiffer’s and Lewis’s theories of common knowledge. The problem is that an account is needed of the perceptual base of some forms of common knowledge that gets by without itself invoking common knowledge. The paper solves the problem by developing a theory of joint attention as consisting in the exercise of joint know-how involving particular and sometimes distal targets and arguing that certain joint perceivers can always have a minimal form of propositional common knowledge about the location of these targets. On such a view, perceptual common knowledge is based on the experience of a process that is maintained by way of perceivers’ exercise of an object-involving form of joint know-how. Some reductive theories of collective intentionality require that agents’ intentions and subplans are common knowledge (or “out in the open”) between them. For these theories the base problem arises again. The enacted theory of joint attention can solve the problem. The argument is exactly parallel to the common knowledge case. The openness of joint agents’ intentions and meshing subplans is explained by appeal to their practical knowledge of how to maintain the process by way of which they pursue the collective intention. They can then make this knowledge explicit by linguistic communication. When they succeed in communicating knowledge of their meshing subplans as pursued in a joint action context, they necessarily have this knowledge in common. For theories of collective intentionality that include a common knowledge condition, the experience of participating in a perceptually constituted joint action provides the base that renders harmless the regress that otherwise threatens reductive analyses.

Arguments, Suppositions, and Conditionals

Arguments and conditionals are powerful means natural languages provide us to reason about possibilities and to reach conclusions from premises. These two kinds of constructions exhibit several affinities—e.g., they both come in different varieties depending on the mood; they share some of the same connectives (i.e., ‘then’); they also allow for similar patterns of modal subordination. In the light of these affinities, it is not surprising that prominent theories of conditionals—old and new suppositionalisms and dynamic theories of conditionals—as well as certain reductive theories of arguments tend to semantically assimilate conditionals and arguments. In this paper, I shall marshall some linguistic evidence as well as some theoretical considerations for thinking that, despite these similarities, arguments and conditionals should be given a different semantics. In the final part of the paper, extending and improving on Kocurek & Pavese 2022, I make some progress outlining a framework that has the potential to capture the affinities of conditionals and arguments, while modeling their differences too.

Universal Complexity Science and Theory of Everything: Challenges and Prospects

This article argues that complexity scientists have been searching for a universal complexity in the form of a “theory of everything” since some important theoretical breakthroughs such as Bertalanffy’s general systems theory, Wiener’s cybernetics, chaos theory, synergetics, self-organization, self-organized criticality and complex adaptive systems, which brought the study of complex systems into mainstream science. In this respect, much attention has been paid to the importance of a “reductionist complexity science” or a “reductionist theory of everything”. Alternatively, many scholars strongly argue for a holistic or emergentist “theory of everything”. The unifying characteristic of both attempts to account for complexity is an insistence on one robust explanatory framework to describe almost all natural and socio-technical phenomena. Nevertheless, researchers need to understand the conceptual historical background of “complexity science” in order to understand these longstanding efforts to develop a single all-inclusive theory. In this theoretical overview, I address this underappreciated problem and argue that both accounts of the “theory of everything” seem problematic, as they do not seem to be able to capture the whole of reality. This realization could mean that the idea of a single omnipotent theory falls flat. However, the prospects for a “holistic theory of everything” are much better than a “reductionist theory of everything”. Nonetheless, various forms of contemporary systems thinking and conceptual tools could make the path to the “theory of everything” much more accessible. These new advances in thinking about complexity, such as “Bohr’s complementarity”, Morin’s Complex thinking, and Cabrera’s DSRP theory, might allow the theorists to abandon the EITHER/OR logical operators and start thinking about BOTH/AND operators to seek reconciliation between reductionism and holism, which might lead them to a new “theory of everything”.

Epigenetic perspective on atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases: The holistic principle of systems biology and epigenetic reasoning

Atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease are the main causes of impairment and cardiac death, placing a significant burden on our health-care system. This review focuses on elucidating the involvement of various epigenetic mechanisms in the genesis and progression of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), particularly chronic CVDs. The deregulation of epigenetic mechanisms plays a crucial role in the progression of CVDs, prompting exploration into novel preventive approaches. Advancements in molecular procedures, network-based approaches, and data analysis have identified new targets in CVDs, permitting the utilization of individualized epigenetic factors for personalized diagnosis and treatment. While promising for improving diagnostic and prognostic assessments, the clinical implementation of epigenetic biomarkers lags behind. Multicenter clinical documentation in a large sample population is crucial to confidently ascertain the clinical utility of specific epigenetic biomarkers. Of particular interest is the interplay between epigenetics and the conflict between the gene-based reductionist theory and the holistic principle of systems biology (SB). The holistic principle analyzes the structural organization and regulation of biological networks, influencing the genesis and progression of complex cardiac diseases like CVDs. This review emphasizes the complexity of CVDs, elucidates the interrelationship between disease networks and epigenetic mechanisms, and highlights the importance of the holistic principle of SB, coupled with artificial intelligence, in clarifying this interrelationship. The constant and uninterrupted epigenetic impact holds immense potential for advancing our understanding of disease progression and treatment across cells and tissues. Despite these advancements, the full integration of the epigenetic impact into medical practice remains incomplete, with limited utilization in clinical applications. Nevertheless, it is likely that in the near future, the epigenetic regulation of gene expression, with its lifelong and extended effects on health, will become an integral part of everyday clinical practice.

Desenvolvimento Econômico como um Processo Social de Múltiplas Escalas Espaço-Temporais

Abstract The article seeks, first, to demonstrate how the concept of development has been used in different ways throughout history. The classical developmentalist authors understood the phenomenon as a complex process, which involved structural changes, sectoral economic transformations, political projects of social change and action and planning by various economic and political actors. Developmentalist ideas influenced sophisticated processes of social transformation that took place especially during the “golden age” of capitalism. From the 1980s onwards, reductionist theories about development have gained momentum. They seek to explain development as the result, for example, of productive specialization, entrepreneurial action or local economic arrangements. The article also aims to establish methodological parameters for the rejection of reductionist approaches to development and for the defence of comprehensive theories, which understand it as a complex social phenomenon that occurs in multiple space-time scales.

UNPRINCIPLED

AbstractIt is widely thought that chance should be understood in reductionist terms: claims about chance should be understood as claims that certain patterns of events are instantiated. There are many possible reductionist theories of chance, differing as to which possible pattern of events they take to be chance-making. It is also widely taken to be a norm of rationality that credence should defer to chance: special cases aside, rationality requires that one’s credence function, when conditionalized on the chance-making facts, should coincide with the objective chance function. It is a shortcoming of a theory of chance if it implies that this norm of rationality is unsatisfiable. The primary goal of this paper is to show, on the basis of considerations concerning computability and inductive learning, that this shortcoming is more common than one would have hoped.

Disasters in the Anthropocene: a storm in a teacup?

Dramatic alterations to the natural environment due to human activity have produced a permanent rupture in the Earth system; the relative stable epoch of the Holocene has given way to a volatile Anthropocene. Acceptance of these claims means that we now live in this altered physical reality, inviting us to rethink how we conceptualise disasters. Yet, disaster scholars have been hesitant to apply the Anthropocene label and to acknowledge the profound changes that it can bring to the study of disasters. This paper queries whether this label is a necessary adage or unnecessary baggage for disaster studies by examining the possibilities and the challenges associated with engaging with the Anthropocene. An analysis of the concepts, causes, and consequences of disasters reveals how the Anthropocene provides, as the very least, a theoretical heuristic for challenging linear temporal assumptions, the epistemological status of uncertainty, and the location of agency in disaster studies.

Macroeconomic policy as an epistemic problem

Macroeconomic theories picture the economy as a phenomenon tractable by their analysis and thus manageable by macroeconomic policies guided by this analysis. This approach has withstood recurrent policy failures, competing theories and several changes of policy paradigms, from Keynesianism to monetarism, because the development of economics as a discipline has been entangled with the demand from policymakers to receive clear macroeconomic policy prescriptions from the expert community. The idea that policymakers can steer the economy in a desired direction relies upon the development of theories with prescriptive and predictive claims, which, in turn, rely on a great deal of analytic reductionism. As a result, reductionist theories continue to offer misrepresentations of the macro phenomenon, particularly by overlooking how policy interventions generate diverse and intractable micro-adaptations that develop into undesired, unforeseen and unintended system-level consequences. This trend continues to cause trouble: reductionist macroeconomic theories foster overconfident interventionist policies that contribute to macroeconomic instability.

The normativity of meaning without the normativity

The normativity of meaning matters because if meaning is normative, then theories of meaning will have to explain normativity, and not all theories of meaning are equipped to do that. Throughout the debate about the normativity of meaning, there has been considerable discussion of what putative features of meaning count as ‘normativity.’ The suggestion of this paper is that the issue of normativity can be bypassed. We can, instead, focus directly on the ways in which various features of meaning constitute constraints on theories of meaning. Since meaning facts directly entail correctness conditions, which in turn rule out certain reductive theories of meaning, correctness conditions—often thought to be peripheral to the debate about the normativity of meaning—matter in exactly the way that the normativity of meaning was thought to matter.

How chance explains

AbstractWhat explains the outcomes of chance processes? We claim that their setups do. Chances, we think, mediate these explanations of outcome by setup but do not feature in them. Facts about chances do feature in explanations of a different kind: higher‐order explanations, which explain how and why setups explain their outcomes. In this paper, we elucidate this 'mediator view' of chancy explanation and defend it from a series of objections. We then show how it changes the playing field in four metaphysical disputes concerning chance. First, it makes it more plausible that even low chances can have explanatory power. Second, it undercuts a circularity objection against reductionist theories of chance. Third, it redirects the debate about a prominent argument against epistemic theories of chance. Finally, it sheds light on potential chancy explanations of the Universe's origin.

A Dilemma for Reductive Compatibilism

A common compatibilist view says that we are free and morally responsible in virtue of the ability to respond aptly to reasons. Many hold a version of this view despite disagreement about whether free will requires the ability to do otherwise. The canonical version of this view is reductive. It reduces the pertinent ability to a set of modal properties that are more obviously compatible with determinism, like dispositions. I argue that this and any reductive view of abilities faces a significant challenge: it cannot adequately explain the freedom-grounding element of this ability. The problem has the form of a dilemma. This leaves reasons-responsive compatibilists with two options: abandon theories of free will grounded in abilities or abandon reductive theories of abilities.

“Adding Up” Reasons: Lessons for Reductive and Nonreductive Approaches

How do multiple reasons combine to support a conclusion about what to do or believe? This question raises two challenges: (1) How can we represent the strength of a reason? (2) How do the strengths of multiple reasons combine? Analogous challenges about confirmation have been answered using probabilistic tools. Can reductive and nonreductive theories of reasons use these tools to answer their challenges? Yes, or more exactly: reductive theories can answer both challenges. Nonreductive theories, with the help of a (new?) result in confirmation theory, can answer one, and there are grounds for optimism that they can answer the other.

Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy by Peter Cheyne

Reviewed by: Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy by Peter Cheyne Dale E. Snow Peter Cheyne. Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xviii + 373. Cloth, £70.00. Peter Cheyne may have understood Coleridge better than the latter understood himself. This book provides an extensive road map to many of the highways and byways Coleridge wandered down in both prose and poetry, and it does so without ever losing sight of the ultimate goal of the journey: a philosophy of contemplative ideas, an ideal-realism that brought together these many disparate influences. For Cheyne, Coleridge is a thinker of the first rank, whose achievement—the philosophy of contemplation, which presents a "view of intuitive reason and its ideas that shape humanity" (3)—could have great value for the future direction of philosophy. Although Cheyne identifies three main periods in Coleridge's intellectual activity, an imagination period (1795–1816), a period focused on the philosophy of ideas (1816–30), and a theological period (1822–34), it is clear from the outset that he will draw upon all three to fully sketch the contemplative philosophy of ideas. He masterfully combines Coleridge's published works, letters, notebooks, marginalia, unpublished manuscripts, and fragments to create a comprehensive portrait of his evolution as a thinker. Cheyne points out that "no standard interpretation of Coleridge … as philosopher and critic exists" (38). This is due in part to the inaccessibility of much of his work, in part to the extent and heterogeneity of his learning, and finally to questions about the relationship of Coleridge's philosophy to German idealism. All three of these issues are dealt with in detail. Cheyne brings to the task a formidable level of conviction that there is a central philosophical vision to be found in Coleridge, a claim disputed in the literature. A key strength of his presentation is his discussion of Coleridge's place in the philosophical traditions that he learned from and tried to bring together. Here I would highlight the nuanced discussion of Coleridge's relationship to Neoplatonism. The emphasis on the Socratic and practical elements of Coleridge's thought is also illuminating. Another insightful analysis is provided in chapter 5 with the handling of Coleridge's relationship with Jakob Böhme and, later, with Friedrich Schelling. Coleridge encountered Böhme as an adolescent, and, as Cheyne informs us, he was the writer whose works Coleridge annotated most extensively. Böhme's significance lay both in his sheer ardor for the divine, and more directly in his demonstrating the power of a dynamic logic of qualities, which became the guiding inspiration for Coleridge's "Order of the Mental Powers" (131, 172), which he developed through his reading of Richard of St. Victor and an idiosyncratic rereading of Plato's Divided Line. In portraying Coleridge's journey beyond the empiricist and mechanically reductive theories he had embraced in his youth, Cheyne shows the inspiration and model for the organicist theory of mind Coleridge eventually adopted. A characteristic feature of this theory of mind is the distinction between the higher and the lower senses of reason (170–71). Chapter 7 is focused on Coleridge's modified Platonism. Cheyne calls him a "post-Kantian Christian Neoplatonist" (222), which, cumbersome as it sounds, does combine the three main influences Coleridge labored to synthesize. He was a post-Kantian because he had been taught by Kant to seek the principles constitutive of knowledge and experience; he was Christian out of lived conviction; and he was a Neoplatonist in the sense that he found all reality to depend on a higher truth. Coleridge's originality lay in his insight that certain ideas of reason interpenetrated human social reality in ways that created cultural realities and helped to define humanity itself. In his Church and State (1829), Coleridge had argued for the development of human institutions as guided by their ideas, an insight later developed by others such as John Henry Newman, T. S. Eliot, and George Steiner. Another of the standout chapters in this ambitious book that must at least be mentioned is the highly detailed (and technical) discussion of Coleridge's pentadic logic, which is the subject of chapter 9. It is a...

Messaging in Biological Psychiatry: Misrepresentations, Their Causes, and Potential Consequences.

Most experts in the field of psychiatry recognize that neuroscience advances have yet to be translated into clinical practice. The main message delivered to laypeople, however, is that mental disorders are brain diseases cured by scientifically designed medications. Here we describe how this misleading message is generated. We summarize the academic studies describing how biomedical observations are often misrepresented in the scientific literature through various forms of data embellishment, publication biases favoring initial and positive studies, improper interpretations, and exaggerated conclusions. These misrepresentations also affect biological psychiatry and are spread through mass media documents. Exacerbated competition, hyperspecialization, and the need to obtain funding for research projects might drive scientists to misrepresent their findings. Moreover, journalists are unaware that initial studies, even when positive and promising, are inherently uncertain. Journalists preferentially cover them and almost never inform the public when those studies are disconfirmed by subsequent research. This explains why reductionist theories about mental health often persist in mass media even though the scientific claims that have been put forward to support them have long been contradicted. These misrepresentations affect the care of patients. Indeed, studies show that a neuro-essentialist conceptualization of mental disorders negatively affects several aspects of stigmatization, reduces the chances of patients’ healing, and overshadows psychotherapeutic and social approaches that have been found effective in alleviating mental suffering. Public information about mental health should avoid these reporting biases and give equal consideration to the biological, psychological, and social aspects of mental health.

Ganymede's Heavenly Descent

ABSTRACTSchubert's song Ganymed has attracted a great deal of interest from analysts on account of its progressive tonal plan, which is often seen as a challenge to Schenkerian theories of tonal structure, as well as its evocative text. This article draws upon a spatial theory of tonal meaning which helps both to resolve the epistemological impasse faced by reductive theories of tonal structure and to better access Schubert's interpretation of Goethe's text through spatial metaphors that derive from the harmony of the song. It also highlights an allusion to Beethoven's ‘Waldstein’ Sonata in the song, which has previously gone unremarked, and identifies this as part of a network of references to Beethoven's Sonata that act both as homage to and critique of his middle‐period style. These serve as a window both into the song and into Schubert's aesthetic stance vis‐à‐vis his musical forebear. It realises latent directional metaphors in the diatonic sharp‐flat and triadic dominant‐subdominant dimensions, which are of hermeneutic value for tonal music. Such a theory helps us interpret Schubert's tonal plan, explain his choices of keys and better understand his reading of Goethe's text and his aesthetic priorities in setting it to music.

On What (In General) Grounds What

A generic grounding claim is a grounding claim that isn’t about any particular entity or fact. For example, consider the claim: an act is right in virtue of maximizing happiness. One natural idea is that generic grounding claims state mere regularities of ground. So if an act is right in virtue of maximizing happiness, then every possible right act is right in virtue of maximizing happiness. The generic claim generalizes over particular grounding relations. In this essay, I argue that this simple story is wrong. Generic grounding claims are not merely quantificational; rather, they express real definitions, where real definitions are (in part) claims about essence. My view has two major upshots: (i) it makes better sense of debates where generic grounding claims are at issue (like debates about moral laws); (ii) it clarifies the distinction between reductive and non-reductive metaphysical theories.