more from this thinker
|
more from this text
Single Idea 6531
[filed under theme 7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
]
Full Idea
Institutional types are irreducible, though I assume that institutional tokens are reducible in the sense of strict identity, all the way down to the subatomic level.
Clarification
An 'institution' would be any organisation, such as a brain or plant
Gist of Idea
Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens
Source
William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
Book Ref
Lycan,William G.: 'Consciousness' [MIT 1995], p.42
A Reaction
This seems a promising distinction, as the boundaries of 'institutions' disappear when you begin to reduce them to lower levels (cf. Idea 4601), and yet plenty of institutions are self-evidently no more than physics. Plants are invisible as physics.
Related Idea
Idea 4601
Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil]
The
25 ideas
with the same theme
[explaining higher levels of existence by lower ones]:
3425
|
Reduction has been defined as deriving one theory from another by logic and maths
[Nagel,E, by Kim]
|
6550
|
Reduction requires that an object's properties consist of its constituents' properties and relations
[Sellars]
|
5791
|
Reduction is either by elimination, or by explanation
[Searle]
|
5799
|
Eliminative reduction needs a gap between appearance and reality, as in sunsets
[Searle]
|
3473
|
Reduction can be of things, properties, ideas or causes
[Searle]
|
6984
|
Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level
[Jackson]
|
2317
|
Reductionism is good on light, genes, temperature and transparency
[Kim, by PG]
|
3990
|
The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth
[Lewis]
|
8607
|
Supervenience is reduction without existence denials, ontological priorities, or translatability
[Lewis]
|
5516
|
Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination
[Parfit, by PG]
|
4986
|
A weaker kind of reductionism than direct translation is the use of 'bridge laws'
[Kirk,R]
|
6532
|
Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens
[Lycan]
|
6531
|
Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens
[Lycan]
|
21110
|
An understanding of the most basic physics should explain all of the subject's mysteries
[Krauss]
|
7017
|
The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality
[Heil]
|
15050
|
Reduction might be producing a sentence which gets closer to the logical form
[Fine,K]
|
15051
|
Reduction might be semantic, where a reduced sentence is understood through its reduction
[Fine,K]
|
15052
|
Reduction is modal, if the reductions necessarily entail the truth of the target sentence
[Fine,K]
|
15056
|
The notion of reduction (unlike that of 'ground') implies the unreality of what is reduced
[Fine,K]
|
18539
|
Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction
[Heil]
|
7508
|
Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another
[Pinker]
|
14599
|
Three types of reduction: Theoretical (of terms), Definitional (of concepts), Ontological (of reality)
[Schaffer,J]
|
7944
|
Reduce by bridge laws (plus property identities?), by elimination, or by reducing talk
[Macdonald,C]
|
22180
|
Multiple realisability is said to make reduction impossible
[Okasha]
|
16345
|
That Peano arithmetic is interpretable in ZF set theory is taken by philosophers as a reduction
[Halbach]
|