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Full Idea
The categories embedded in a higher-level science (psychology, for instance) designate genuine properties of objects, which are not reducible to properties found in sciences at lower levels.
Gist of Idea
Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels
Source
John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4)
Book Ref
Heil,John: 'Philosophy of Mind' [Routledge 1998], p.117
A Reaction
This isn't an argument against reductionism. It is obviously true that someone with a physics degree won't make a good doctor. It's these wretched 'property' things again. Is 'found repulsive by me' a property terrorists?
| 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] |