Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Philosophy and Scientific Image of Man' and 'Theory Change and the Indeterminacy of Reference'

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7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction

6550	Reduction requires that an object's properties consist of its constituents' properties and relations [Sellars]
	Full Idea: The 'Principle of Reducibility' says if an object is a system of objects, then every property of the object must consist in the fact that its constituents have such and such qualities and such and such relations
	From: Wilfrid Sellars (Philosophy and Scientific Image of Man [1962], p.27), quoted by William Lycan - Consciousness
	A reaction: This sounds to me a more promising attitude to reduction than all this talk of Ernest Nagel's 'Bridge Laws'. If we ask HOW a higher level property arises because of a lower level property, we can describe a mechanism rather than a law.