3473
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Reduction can be of things, properties, ideas or causes [Searle]
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Full Idea:
I find at least five different senses of "reduction" in the literature - ontological (genes/DNA), property ontological (heat/mean molecular energy), theoretical (gas laws/statistics), logical/definitional (average plumber), and causal (solids/molecules).
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From:
John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.II)
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A reaction:
A useful pointer towards some much needed clearer thought about reduction. It is necessary to cross reference this list against reductions which are either ontological or epistemological or linguistic.
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5791
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Reduction is either by elimination, or by explanation [Searle]
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Full Idea:
One sense of 'reduction' is eliminative, in getting rid of a phenomenon by showing that it is really something else (as the earth's rotation eliminates 'sunsets'), but another sense does not get rid of it (as in the explanation of solidity by molecules).
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From:
John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Ch.2)
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A reaction:
These are bad analogies. You can't 'eliminate' a sunset - you just accept that the event is relative to a viewpoint. If we are discussing ontology, we will not admit the existence of sunsets, but we won't have an ontological category of 'solidity' either.
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3532
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Solidity in a piston is integral to its structure, not supervenient [Maslin on Searle]
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Full Idea:
Searle's defence of causally efficacious supervenient mind won't work, because, unlike the mind, the solidity of a piston is not a distinct and separate phenomenon from its microstructure.
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From:
comment on John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.V) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.6
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A reaction:
Searle struggles to find analogies for his position - and that, in my view, is highly significant in the philosophy of mind. If there is nothing else like your proposed theory, it is probably just human vainglory.
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