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Full Idea
Most antireductionist arguments focus on the unavailability of bridge laws to effect the reduction of psychological theory to physical theory (as found in reducing the gas laws to theories about molecules).
Gist of Idea
Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical
Source
Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.216)
Book Ref
Kim,Jaegwon: 'Philosophy of Mind' [Westview 1998], p.216
A Reaction
Reduction can, of course, be achieved by identity rather than by bridge laws. I would say that all that prevents us from predicting mental events from physical ones is the sheer complexity involved. Cf. predicting the detailed results of an explosion.
| 3529 | Reduction is impossible because mind is holistic and brain isn't [Davidson, by Maslin] |
| 3964 | If the mind is an anomaly, this makes reduction of the mental to the physical impossible [Davidson] |
| 5798 | Consciousness has a first-person ontology, so it cannot be reduced without omitting something [Searle] |
| 2314 | Maybe intentionality is reducible, but qualia aren't [Kim] |
| 3427 | Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical [Kim] |
| 3439 | Reductionism gets stuck with qualia [Kim] |
| 4091 | The problems of misrepresentation and error have dogged physicalist reductions of intentionality [Crane] |
| 4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
| 4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
| 2533 | Rule-following can't be reduced to the physical [Sturgeon] |