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Full Idea
The categories definitive of a given science mark off boundaries that are largely invisible within science at lower levels. That is why there is, in general, no prospect of reducing a higher-level science to a science at some lower level.
Gist of Idea
Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels
Source
John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4)
Book Ref
Heil,John: 'Philosophy of Mind' [Routledge 1998], p.116
A Reaction
This sounds slick, but I am unconvinced. Molecules only exist at the level of chemistry, but they are built up out of physics, and the 'boundaries' could be explained in physics, if you had the knowledge and patience.
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] |