
Being Reduced
New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation
Oxford University Press
Published on 4. September 2008
Book
Hardback
324 pages
978-0-19-921153-1 (ISBN)
Description
There are few more unsettling philosophical questions than this: What happens in attempts to reduce some properties to some other more fundamental properties? Reflection on this question inevitably touches on very deep issues about ourselves, our own interactions with the world and each other, and our very understanding of what there is and what goes on around us. If we cannot command a clear view of these deep issues, then very many other debates in contemporary philosophy seem to lose traction - think of causation, laws of nature, explanation, consciousness, personal identity, intentionality, normativity, freedom, responsibility, justice, and so on. Reduction can easily seem to unravel our world.
Here, an eminent group of philosophers helps us answer this question. Their novel contributions comfortably span a number of current debates in philosophy and cognitive science: what is the nature of reduction, of reductive explanation, of mental causation? The contributions range from approaches in theoretical metaphysics, over philosophy of the special sciences and physics, to interdisciplinary studies in psychiatry and neurobiology. The authors connect strands in contemporary philosophy that are often treated separately and in combination the chapters allow the reader to see how issues of reduction, explanation and causation mutually constrain each other. The anthology therefore moves the debate further both at the level of contributions to specific debates and at the level of integrating insights from a number of debates.
Here, an eminent group of philosophers helps us answer this question. Their novel contributions comfortably span a number of current debates in philosophy and cognitive science: what is the nature of reduction, of reductive explanation, of mental causation? The contributions range from approaches in theoretical metaphysics, over philosophy of the special sciences and physics, to interdisciplinary studies in psychiatry and neurobiology. The authors connect strands in contemporary philosophy that are often treated separately and in combination the chapters allow the reader to see how issues of reduction, explanation and causation mutually constrain each other. The anthology therefore moves the debate further both at the level of contributions to specific debates and at the level of integrating insights from a number of debates.
Reviews / Votes
[a] fine compendium of philosophical ideas and arguments * Ingo Brigandt, The Philosophical Quaterly (Oct 2010) * collects many excellent papers that provide a variety of perspectives on some very important core issues. It deserves wide readership and close study. * D. Gene Witmer, MIND01/06/2012 * The general impression from the reading of this selection of studies is one of the sophisticated analysis, in line with the best Anglo-Saxon analytical tradition, on the real possibilities of conveying programs of reduction, on the different models available, and on their flaws and limits. This is certainly the most technical study published to date on this issue, the one paying greatest attention to detailand applying the most nanced distinctions. * Lluis Oviedo, ESSSAT News *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
652 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-921153-1 (9780199211531)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Jakob Hohwy obtained his PhD from the Australian National University. He is a lecturer in philosophy at Monash University, Melbourne. Hohwy works on issues of reduction and explanation in science, and engages in interdisciplinary research with neuroscientists and psychiatrists.
Jesper Kallestrup obtained his PhD from the University of St. Andrews. He is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and an associate fellow at Arche, the University of St. Andrews. Kallestrup works on issues of reduction, mental causation and the conceivability arguments in the philosophy of mind.
Jesper Kallestrup obtained his PhD from the University of St. Andrews. He is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and an associate fellow at Arche, the University of St. Andrews. Kallestrup works on issues of reduction, mental causation and the conceivability arguments in the philosophy of mind.
Content
Introduction ; 1. Reduction and Embodied Cognition:Perspectives from Medicine and Psychiatry ; 2. Real Reduction in Real Neuroscience: Metascience, Not Philosophy of Science (and Certainly Not Metaphysics!) ; 3. Reduction in Real Life ; 4. Group Agency and Supervenience ; 5. Reduction and Reductive Explanation: Is One Possible without the Other? ; 6. CP Laws, Reduction, and Explanatory Pluralism ; 7. Must a Physicalist be a Microphysicalist? ; 8. Why There Is Anything except Physics ; 9. Multiple realisation: keeping it real ; 10. Causation and determinable properties: on the efficacy of colour, shape and size ; 11. The exclusion problem, the determination relation, and contrastive causation ; 12. Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms ; 13. Distinctions in Distinction ; 14. Exclusion again ; Index