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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]:
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3425
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Reduction has been defined as deriving one theory from another by logic and maths
[Nagel,E, by Kim]
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6550
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Reduction requires that an object's properties consist of its constituents' properties and relations
[Sellars]
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5791
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Reduction is either by elimination, or by explanation
[Searle]
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5799
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Eliminative reduction needs a gap between appearance and reality, as in sunsets
[Searle]
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3473
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Reduction can be of things, properties, ideas or causes
[Searle]
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6984
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Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level
[Jackson]
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2317
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Reductionism is good on light, genes, temperature and transparency
[Kim, by PG]
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3990
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The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth
[Lewis]
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8607
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Supervenience is reduction without existence denials, ontological priorities, or translatability
[Lewis]
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5516
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Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination
[Parfit, by PG]
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4986
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A weaker kind of reductionism than direct translation is the use of 'bridge laws'
[Kirk,R]
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6531
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Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens
[Lycan]
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6532
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Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens
[Lycan]
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21110
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An understanding of the most basic physics should explain all of the subject's mysteries
[Krauss]
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7017
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The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality
[Heil]
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15050
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Reduction might be producing a sentence which gets closer to the logical form
[Fine,K]
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15051
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Reduction might be semantic, where a reduced sentence is understood through its reduction
[Fine,K]
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15052
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Reduction is modal, if the reductions necessarily entail the truth of the target sentence
[Fine,K]
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15056
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The notion of reduction (unlike that of 'ground') implies the unreality of what is reduced
[Fine,K]
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18539
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Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction
[Heil]
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7508
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Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another
[Pinker]
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14599
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Three types of reduction: Theoretical (of terms), Definitional (of concepts), Ontological (of reality)
[Schaffer,J]
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7944
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Reduce by bridge laws (plus property identities?), by elimination, or by reducing talk
[Macdonald,C]
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22180
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Multiple realisability is said to make reduction impossible
[Okasha]
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16345
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That Peano arithmetic is interpretable in ZF set theory is taken by philosophers as a reduction
[Halbach]
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