还原论

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文件:Digesting Duck.jpg

René Descartes, in De homine (1662), claimed that non-human animals could be explained reductively as automata; meaning essentially as more mechanically complex versions of this Digesting Duck.

René Descartes, in De homine (1662), claimed that non-human animals could be explained reductively as automata; meaning essentially as more mechanically complex versions of this Digesting Duck.

勒内·笛卡尔（René Descartes）在其1662年出版的《人论》(De Homine)中宣称：非人类动物可以还原地解释为自动机，本质上是一种类似于消化鸭的复杂机械。

Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena, which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts.

Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena, which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena.

还原论是关于现象之间联系的几个相关的哲学思想中的任何一个，可以用其他更简单或更基本的现象来描述。

Definitions

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy suggests that reductionism is "one of the most used and abused terms in the philosophical lexicon" and suggests a three part division:

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy suggests that reductionism is "one of the most used and abused terms in the philosophical lexicon" and suggests a three part division:

《牛津哲学指南》指出，还原论是“哲学词汇中最常用和最常被滥用的术语之一”，并提出了一个分为三部分的划分:

1. Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts.

Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts.

本体论还原论: 一种认为整个现实由最小数量的部分组成的信念。

1. Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide explanation in terms of ever smaller entities.

Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide explanation in terms of ever smaller entities.

方法论还原论: 试图用更小的实体来提供解释的科学尝试。

1. Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb an older one, but reduces it to more basic terms. Theory reduction itself is divisible into three parts: translation, derivation and explanation.

Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb an older one, but reduces it to more basic terms. Theory reduction itself is divisible into three parts: translation, derivation and explanation.

理论还原论: 认为新的理论不会取代或吸收旧的理论，而是将其简化为更基本的术语。理论还原本身可以分为翻译、推导和解释三个部分。

Reductionism can be applied to any phenomenon, including objects, problems, explanations, theories, and meanings.

For the sciences, application of methodological reductionism attempts explanation of entire systems in terms of their individual, constituent parts and their interactions. For example, the temperature of a gas is reduced to nothing beyond the average kinetic energy of its molecules in motion. Thomas Nagel and others speak of 'psychophysical reductionism' (the attempted reduction of psychological phenomena to physics and chemistry), and 'physico-chemical reductionism' (the attempted reduction of biology to physics and chemistry). and by Jaegwon Kim: that form of reductionism which concerns a program of replacing the facts or entities involved in one type of discourse with other facts or entities from another type, thereby providing a relationship between them. Richard Jones distinguishes ontological and epistemological reductionism, arguing that many ontological and epistemological reductionists affirm the need for different concepts for different degrees of complexity while affirming a reduction of theories. Some physicists, however, claim that reductionism and emergentism are complementary: both are needed to explain natural processes.

对于科学而言，方法论还原论的应用试图从整个系统的个体、组成部分及其相互作用的角度对其进行解释。例如，气体的温度被降低到除了运动中分子的平均动能之外的零值。托马斯 · 内格尔和其他人谈到了“心理物理学还原论”(试图将心理现象还原为物理和化学)和“物理化学还原论”(试图将生物学还原为物理和化学)。以及 Jaegwon Kim 提出的还原论: 这种还原论的形式涉及一种程序，用另一种类型的其他事实或实体替换一种类型的论述中涉及的事实或实体，从而在它们之间提供一种关系。理查德 · 琼斯区分了本体论和认识论的还原论，他认为许多本体论和认识论的还原论者在肯定理论的还原时，肯定了不同复杂程度的不同概念的必要性。然而，一些物理学家声称还原论和浮现论是互补的: 两者都需要用来解释自然过程。

For the sciences, application of methodological reductionism attempts explanation of entire systems in terms of their individual, constituent parts and their interactions. For example, the temperature of a gas is reduced to nothing beyond the average kinetic energy of its molecules in motion. Thomas Nagel and others speak of 'psychophysical reductionism' (the attempted reduction of psychological phenomena to physics and chemistry), and 'physico-chemical reductionism' (the attempted reduction of biology to physics and chemistry). In a very simplified and sometimes contested form, reductionism is said to imply that a system is nothing but the sum of its parts. However, a more nuanced opinion is that a system is composed entirely of its parts, but the system will have features that none of the parts have (which, in essence is the basis of emergentism). "The point of mechanistic explanations is usually showing how the higher level features arise from the parts."

Most philosophers delineate three types of reductionism and anti-reductionism.

大多数哲学家将还原论和反还原论分为三种类型。

Other definitions are used by other authors. For example, what John Polkinghorne terms 'conceptual' or 'epistemological' reductionism is the definition provided by Simon Blackburn and by Jaegwon Kim: that form of reductionism which concerns a program of replacing the facts or entities involved in one type of discourse with other facts or entities from another type, thereby providing a relationship between them. Richard Jones distinguishes ontological and epistemological reductionism, arguing that many ontological and epistemological reductionists affirm the need for different concepts for different degrees of complexity while affirming a reduction of theories.

Nancey Murphy has claimed that there are two species of ontological reductionism: one that claims that wholes are nothing more than their parts; and atomist reductionism, claiming that wholes are not "really real". She admits that the phrase "really real" is apparently senseless but she has tried to explicate the supposed difference between the two.

Nancey Murphy 声称有两种本体论还原论: 一种声称整体不过是它们的部分; 另一种声称整体不是“真正的”，是原子论还原论。她承认，“真实”这个短语显然毫无意义，但她试图解释两者之间所谓的区别。

The idea of reductionism can be expressed by "levels" of explanation, with higher levels reducible if need be to lower levels. This use of levels of understanding in part expresses our human limitations in remembering detail. However, "most philosophers would insist that our role in conceptualizing reality [our need for a hierarchy of "levels" of understanding] does not change the fact that different levels of organization in reality do have different 'properties'."

Ontological reductionism denies the idea of ontological emergence, and claims that emergence is an epistemological phenomenon that only exists through analysis or description of a system, and does not exist fundamentally.

本体论还原论否定了本体论涌现的观点，认为涌现是一种仅仅通过对系统的分析或描述而存在的认识论现象，并不能从根本上存在。

Reductionism should be distinguished from eliminationism: reductionists do not deny the existence of phenomena, but explain them in terms of another reality; eliminationists deny the existence of the phenomena themselves. For example, eliminationists deny the existence of life by their explanation in terms of physical and chemical processes.

Ontological reductionism takes two forms: token ontological reductionism and type ontological reductionism.

本体论还原论有两种形式: 表征本体论还原论和类型本体论还原论。

Reductionism does not preclude the existence of what might be termed emergent phenomena, but it does imply the ability to understand those phenomena completely in terms of the processes from which they are composed. This reductionist understanding is very different from ontological or strong emergentism, which intends that what emerges in "emergence" is more than the sum of the processes from which it emerges, respectively either in the ontological sense or in the epistemological sense. Some physicists, however, claim that reductionism and emergentism are complementary: both are needed to explain natural processes.

Token ontological reductionism is the idea that every item that exists is a sum item. For perceivable items, it affirms that every perceivable item is a sum of items with a lesser degree of complexity. Token ontological reduction of biological things to chemical things is generally accepted.

令牌本体论还原论是认为存在的每一项都是一个和项的观点。对于可感知的项目，它确认每个可感知的项目是复杂程度较低的项目的总和。表征本体论把生物事物还原为化学事物已被普遍接受。

Types

Most philosophers delineate three types of reductionism and anti-reductionism.

Type ontological reductionism is the idea that every type of item is a sum type of item, and that every perceivable type of item is a sum of types of items with a lesser degree of complexity. Type ontological reduction of biological things to chemical things is often rejected.

类型本体论还原论是这样一种观点，即每种类型的项目都是项目的和类型，每种可感知类型的项目都是复杂程度较低的项目类型的和。类本体论把生物学的事物还原为化学的事物常常被拒绝。

Ontological reductionism

Michael Ruse has criticized ontological reductionism as an improper argument against vitalism.

迈克尔 · 鲁斯批评本体论的还原论是反对活力论的不恰当论据。

Ontological reductionism is the belief that reality is composed of a minimum number of kinds of entities or substances. This claim is usually metaphysical, and is most commonly a form of monism, in effect claiming that all objects, properties and events are reducible to a single substance. (A dualist who is an ontological reductionist would believe that everything is reducible to two substances—as one possible example, a dualist might claim that reality is composed of "matter" and "spirit".)

Richard Jones divides ontological reductionism into two: the reductionism of substances (e.g., the reduction of mind to matter) and the reduction of the number of structures operating in nature (e.g., the reduction of one physical force to another). This permits scientists and philosophers to affirm the former while being anti-reductionists regarding the latter.

Methodological reductionism is the position that the best scientific strategy is to attempt to reduce explanations to the smallest possible entities. In a biological context, this means attempting to explain all biological phenomena in terms of their underlying biochemical and molecular processes. Claim of efficacy is demonstrated that the gene – unit of classical heredity – is the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a macro-molecule. Statistical mechanics can be considered as a reconciliation of macroscopic thermodynamic laws with the reductionist method of explaining macroscopic properties in terms of microscopic components.

方法论还原论认为，最好的科学策略是试图将解释简化为最小的可能实体。在生物学的背景下，这意味着试图解释所有的生物现象，根据其潜在的生物化学和分子过程。功效的要求被证明，基因-古典遗传的单位-是脱氧核糖核酸，一个大分子。统计力学可以被认为是宏观热力学定律与用微观组分解释宏观性质的还原方法的和解。

Nancey Murphy has claimed that there are two species of ontological reductionism: one that claims that wholes are nothing more than their parts; and atomist reductionism, claiming that wholes are not "really real". She admits that the phrase "really real" is apparently senseless but she has tried to explicate the supposed difference between the two.

In science, reductionism implies that certain topics of study are based on areas that study smaller spatial scales or organizational units. While it is commonly accepted that the foundations of chemistry are based in physics, and molecular biology is based on chemistry, similar statements become controversial when one considers less rigorously defined intellectual pursuits. For example, claims that sociology is based on psychology, or that economics is based on sociology and psychology would be met with reservations. These claims are difficult to substantiate even though there are obvious associations between these topics (for instance, most would agree that psychology can affect and inform economics). The limit of reductionism's usefulness stems from emergent properties of complex systems, which are more common at certain levels of organization. For example, certain aspects of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology are rejected by some who claim that complex systems are inherently irreducible and that a holistic method is needed to understand them.

在科学中，还原论意味着某些研究主题是基于研究较小的空间尺度或组织单位的领域。虽然人们普遍认为化学的基础是物理学，而分子生物学的基础是化学，但是当人们考虑不那么严格定义的智力追求时，类似的陈述就会引起争议。例如，声称社会学是基于心理学的，或者经济学是基于社会学和心理学的，都是有保留意见的。尽管这些主题之间有明显的联系(例如，大多数人会同意心理学可以影响和告知经济学) ，但这些主张很难得到证实。还原论有用性的局限性源于复杂系统的突现性，这些突现性在组织的某些层次上更为普遍。例如，进化心理学和社会生物学的某些方面遭到一些人的否定，他们声称复杂的系统本质上是不可还原的，需要一种整体的方法来理解它们。

Ontological reductionism denies the idea of ontological emergence, and claims that emergence is an epistemological phenomenon that only exists through analysis or description of a system, and does not exist fundamentally.

Some strong reductionists believe that the behavioral sciences should become "genuine" scientific disciplines based on genetic biology, and on the systematic study of culture (see Richard Dawkins's concept of memes). In his book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins introduced the term "hierarchical reductionism" to describe the opinion that complex systems can be described with a hierarchy of organizations, each of which is only described in terms of objects one level down in the hierarchy. He provides the example of a computer, which using hierarchical reductionism is explained in terms of the operation of hard drives, processors, and memory, but not on the level of logic gates, or on the even simpler level of electrons in a semiconductor medium.

一些强有力的还原论者认为，行为科学应该成为基于遗传生物学和文化系统研究的“真正的”科学分支。在他的《盲眼钟表匠书中，Dawkins 引入了术语层次化简论来描述这样一种观点，即复杂系统可以用组织的层次来描述，每个组织只能用层次中下一个层次的对象来描述。他以计算机为例，用分层还原论来解释硬盘驱动器、处理器和内存的操作，而不是逻辑门的层次，或者更简单的半导体介质中的电子层次。

Ontological reductionism takes two forms: token ontological reductionism and type ontological reductionism.

Quantum Holonomy theory is a theory of the lowest possible reduction.

量子整体论是一种最低可能还原理论。

Token ontological reductionism is the idea that every item that exists is a sum item. For perceivable items, it affirms that every perceivable item is a sum of items with a lesser degree of complexity. Token ontological reduction of biological things to chemical things is generally accepted.

Others argue that inappropriate use of reductionism limits our understanding of complex systems. In particular, ecologist Robert Ulanowicz says that science must develop techniques to study ways in which larger scales of organization influence smaller ones, and also ways in which feedback loops create structure at a given level, independently of details at a lower level of organization. He advocates (and uses) information theory as a framework to study propensities in natural systems. Ulanowicz attributes these criticisms of reductionism to the philosopher Karl Popper and biologist Robert Rosen.

其他人认为，还原论的不恰当使用限制了我们对复杂系统的理解。特别是，生态学家罗伯特·尤兰维奇说，科学必须发展技术来研究大规模组织影响小规模组织的方式，以及反馈循环在给定水平上创造结构的方式，而不受较低水平组织细节的影响。他提倡(并使用)信息理论作为研究自然系统倾向的框架。乌兰诺维茨把这些还原论的批评归结于哲学家卡尔 · 波普尔和生物学家罗伯特 · 罗森。

Type ontological reductionism is the idea that every type of item is a sum type of item, and that every perceivable type of item is a sum of types of items with a lesser degree of complexity. Type ontological reduction of biological things to chemical things is often rejected.

Stuart Kauffman has argued that complex systems theory and phenomena such as emergence pose limits to reductionism. Emergence is especially relevant when systems exhibit historicity. Emergence is strongly related to nonlinearity. The limits of the application of reductionism are claimed to be especially evident at levels of organization with greater complexity, including living cells, neural networks, ecosystems, society, and other systems formed from assemblies of large numbers of diverse components linked by multiple feedback loops.

斯图尔特 · 考夫曼认为复杂系统理论和涌现现象对还原论构成了限制。当系统表现出历史性时，涌现特别重要。涌现与非线性密切相关。还原论应用的局限性在更复杂的组织层面上尤其明显，包括活细胞、神经网络、生态系统、社会，以及由多个反馈回路连接的大量不同组成部分组成的其他系统。

Michael Ruse has criticized ontological reductionism as an improper argument against vitalism.

Nobel laureate Philip Warren Anderson used the idea that symmetry breaking is an example of an emergent phenomenon in his 1972 Science paper "More is different" to make an argument about the limitations of reductionism. One observation he made was that the sciences can be arranged roughly in a linear hierarchy—particle physics, solid state physics, chemistry, molecular biology, cellular biology, physiology, psychology, social sciences—in that the elementary entities of one science obeys the principles of the science that precedes it in the hierarchy; yet this does not imply that one science is just an applied version of the science that precedes it. He writes that "At each stage, entirely new laws, concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. Psychology is not applied biology nor is biology applied chemistry."

诺贝尔经济学奖获得者菲利普·安德森在他1972年的科学论文《更多的是不同的》中使用对称性破缺是一个突现现象的例子来论证还原论的局限性。他观察到，科学可以大致按线性层次排列ー粒子物理学、固体物理学、化学、分子生物学、细胞生物学、生理学、心理学、社会科学ー因为一门科学的基本实体遵循先于它的科学原理; 然而，这并不意味着一门科学只是先于它的科学的应用版本。他写道: “在每一个阶段，全新的法则、概念和概括都是必要的，需要灵感和创造力，就像前一个阶段一样。心理学不是应用生物学，生物学也不是应用化学。”

Methodological reductionism

Disciplines such as cybernetics and systems theory imply non-reductionism, sometimes to the extent of explaining phenomena at a given level of hierarchy in terms of phenomena at a higher level, in a sense, the opposite of reductionism.

控制论和系统论等学科意味着非还原论，有时达到了用更高层次的现象来解释某一层次的现象的程度，在某种意义上，这是还原论的对立面。

Methodological reductionism is the position that the best scientific strategy is to attempt to reduce explanations to the smallest possible entities. In a biological context, this means attempting to explain all biological phenomena in terms of their underlying biochemical and molecular processes. Claim of efficacy is demonstrated that the gene – unit of classical heredity – is the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a macro-molecule.

Theory reductionism

In mathematics, reductionism can be interpreted as the philosophy that all mathematics can (or ought to) be based on a common foundation, which for modern mathematics is usually axiomatic set theory. Ernst Zermelo was one of the major advocates of such an opinion; he also developed much of axiomatic set theory. It has been argued that the generally accepted method of justifying mathematical axioms by their usefulness in common practice can potentially weaken Zermelo's reductionist claim.

在数学中，还原论可以被解释为一种哲学，即所有的数学都可以(或者应该)建立在一个共同的基础之上，而对于现代数学来说，这个基础通常是公理化集合论的。是这种观点的主要倡导者之一; 他也发展了大量的公理化集合论。有人认为，用数学公理在普通实践中的有用性来证明数学公理的普遍接受的方法，可能会削弱泽梅洛的简化论主张。

Theory reduction is the process by which a more general theory absorbs a special theory. For example, both Kepler's laws of the motion of the planets and Galileo's theories of motion formulated for terrestrial objects are reducible to Newtonian theories of mechanics because all the explanatory power of the former are contained within the latter. Furthermore, the reduction is considered beneficial because Newtonian mechanics is a more general theory—that is, it explains more events than Galileo's or Kepler's. Besides scientific theories, theory reduction more generally can be the process by which one explanation subsumes another.

Jouko Väänänen has argued for second-order logic as a foundation for mathematics instead of set theory, whereas others have argued for category theory as a foundation for certain aspects of mathematics.

认为二阶逻辑是数学的基础，而不是集合论，而其他人则认为范畴论是数学某些方面的基础。

In science

The incompleteness theorems of Kurt Gödel, published in 1931, caused doubt about the attainability of an axiomatic foundation for all of mathematics. Any such foundation would have to include axioms powerful enough to describe the arithmetic of the natural numbers (a subset of all mathematics). Yet Gödel proved that, for any consistent recursively enumerable axiomatic system powerful enough to describe the arithmetic of the natural numbers, there are (model-theoretically) true propositions about the natural numbers that cannot be proved from the axioms. Such propositions are known as formally undecidable propositions. For example, the continuum hypothesis is undecidable in the Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory as shown by Cohen.

1931年发表的库尔特 · 哥德尔的不完备性定理，引起了对所有数学公理化基础的可达性的怀疑。任何这样的基础都必须包括强大到足以描述自然数算术(所有数学的子集)的公理。然而，g ö del 证明了，对于任何一致的可递归枚举的公理系统，有足够的能力来描述自然数的算术运算，有关于自然数的真命题(模型-理论)是不能从公理中证明的。这样的命题称为形式上不可判定的命题。例如，正如 Cohen 所证明的，在 Zermelo-Fraenkel 集合论中，连续统假设是不可判定的。

Reductionist thinking and methods form the basis for many of the well-developed topics of modern science, including much of physics, chemistry and molecular biology. Classical mechanics in particular is seen as a reductionist framework. For instance, we understand the solar system in terms of its components (the sun and the planets) and their interactions. Statistical mechanics can be considered as a reconciliation of macroscopic thermodynamic laws with the reductionist method of explaining macroscopic properties in terms of microscopic components.

In science, reductionism implies that certain topics of study are based on areas that study smaller spatial scales or organizational units. While it is commonly accepted that the foundations of chemistry are based in physics, and molecular biology is based on chemistry, similar statements become controversial when one considers less rigorously defined intellectual pursuits. For example, claims that sociology is based on psychology, or that economics is based on sociology and psychology would be met with reservations. These claims are difficult to substantiate even though there are obvious associations between these topics (for instance, most would agree that psychology can affect and inform economics). The limit of reductionism's usefulness stems from emergent properties of complex systems, which are more common at certain levels of organization. For example, certain aspects of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology are rejected by some who claim that complex systems are inherently irreducible and that a holistic method is needed to understand them.

The role of reduction in computer science can be thought as a precise and unambiguous mathematical formalization of the philosophical idea of "theory reductionism". In a general sense, a problem (or set) is said to be reducible to another problem (or set), if there is a computable/feasible method to translate the questions of the former into the latter, so that, if one knows how to computably/feasibly solve the latter problem, then one can computably/feasibly solve the former. Thus, the latter can only be at least as "hard" to solve as the former.

还原在计算机科学中的作用可以看作是“理论还原论”哲学思想的精确而明确的数学形式化。在一般意义上，一个问题(或集合) ，如果有一个可计算/可行的方法将前者的问题转化为后者，那么，如果一个人知道如何可计算/可行地解决后者的问题，那么他就可以可计算/可行地解决前者。因此，后者至少只能像前者一样“难”解决。

Some strong reductionists believe that the behavioral sciences should become "genuine" scientific disciplines based on genetic biology, and on the systematic study of culture (see Richard Dawkins's concept of memes). In his book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins introduced the term "hierarchical reductionism" to describe the opinion that complex systems can be described with a hierarchy of organizations, each of which is only described in terms of objects one level down in the hierarchy. He provides the example of a computer, which using hierarchical reductionism is explained in terms of the operation of hard drives, processors, and memory, but not on the level of logic gates, or on the even simpler level of electrons in a semiconductor medium.

Reduction in theoretical computer science is pervasive in both: the mathematical abstract foundations of computation; and in real-world performance or capability analysis of algorithms. More specifically, reduction is a foundational and central concept, not only in the realm of mathematical logic and abstract computation in computability (or recursive) theory, where it assumes the form of e.g. Turing reduction, but also in the realm of real-world computation in time (or space) complexity analysis of algorithms, where it assumes the form of e.g. polynomial-time reduction.

理论计算机科学的简化在两个方面都很普遍: 计算的数学抽象基础; 以及在现实世界中算法的性能或能力分析。更具体地说，还原是一个基础的和中心的概念，不仅在数学逻辑和可计算性(或递归)理论的抽象计算领域，在那里它采用的形式是。图灵约简，但也在现实世界的计算领域的时间(或空间)复杂性分析的算法，其中它假设的形式，如。多项式时间图灵归约。

Quantum Holonomy theory is a theory of the lowest possible reduction.

Others argue that inappropriate use of reductionism limits our understanding of complex systems. In particular, ecologist Robert Ulanowicz says that science must develop techniques to study ways in which larger scales of organization influence smaller ones, and also ways in which feedback loops create structure at a given level, independently of details at a lower level of organization. He advocates (and uses) information theory as a framework to study propensities in natural systems. Ulanowicz attributes these criticisms of reductionism to the philosopher Karl Popper and biologist Robert Rosen.

Religious reductionism generally attempts to explain religion by explaining it in terms of nonreligious causes. A few examples of reductionistic explanations for the presence of religion are: that religion can be reduced to humanity's conceptions of right and wrong, that religion is fundamentally a primitive attempt at controlling our environments, that religion is a way to explain the existence of a physical world, and that religion confers an enhanced survivability for members of a group and so is reinforced by natural selection. Anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer employed some religious reductionist arguments.

宗教还原论通常试图用非宗教的原因来解释宗教。关于宗教存在的还原论解释的几个例子是: 宗教可以归结为人类对是非的概念，宗教基本上是控制我们环境的原始尝试，宗教是解释物质世界存在的一种方式，宗教赋予一个群体成员更强的生存能力，自然选择也加强了这种能力。人类学家爱德华·伯内特·泰勒和詹姆斯·弗雷泽使用了一些宗教还原论的观点。

Stuart Kauffman has argued that complex systems theory and phenomena such as emergence pose limits to reductionism. Emergence is especially relevant when systems exhibit historicity. Emergence is strongly related to nonlinearity. The limits of the application of reductionism are claimed to be especially evident at levels of organization with greater complexity, including living cells, neural networks, ecosystems, society, and other systems formed from assemblies of large numbers of diverse components linked by multiple feedback loops.

Nobel laureate Philip Warren Anderson used the idea that symmetry breaking is an example of an emergent phenomenon in his 1972 Science paper "More is different" to make an argument about the limitations of reductionism. One observation he made was that the sciences can be arranged roughly in a linear hierarchy—particle physics, solid state physics, chemistry, molecular biology, cellular biology, physiology, psychology, social sciences—in that the elementary entities of one science obeys the principles of the science that precedes it in the hierarchy; yet this does not imply that one science is just an applied version of the science that precedes it. He writes that "At each stage, entirely new laws, concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. Psychology is not applied biology nor is biology applied chemistry."

Linguistic reductionism is the idea that everything can be described or explained by a language with a limited number of concepts, and combinations of those concepts. An example is the language Toki Pona.

语言还原论是一种观点，认为一切事物都可以用一种语言来描述或解释，只有有限数量的概念，以及这些概念的组合。一个例子是语言 Toki Pona。

Disciplines such as cybernetics and systems theory imply non-reductionism, sometimes to the extent of explaining phenomena at a given level of hierarchy in terms of phenomena at a higher level, in a sense, the opposite of reductionism.

The concept of downward causation poses an alternative to reductionism within philosophy. This opinion is developed by Peter Bøgh Andersen, Claus Emmeche, Niels Ole Finnemann, and Peder Voetmann Christiansen, among others. These philosophers explore ways in which one can talk about phenomena at a larger-scale level of organization exerting causal influence on a smaller-scale level, and find that some, but not all proposed types of downward causation are compatible with science. In particular, they find that constraint is one way in which downward causation can operate. The notion of causality as constraint has also been explored as a way to shed light on scientific concepts such as self-organization, natural selection, adaptation, and control.

向下因果关系的概念在哲学中提出了一种还原论的替代方法。这个观点是由 Peter b ø gh Andersen，Claus Emmeche，Niels Ole Finnemann，和 Peder Voetmann Christiansen 等人提出的。这些哲学家探索的方式，其中一个可以谈论的现象，在较大规模的组织水平产生因果影响的较小规模的水平，并发现，一些，但不是所有类型的向下因果关系是与科学兼容的。特别是，他们发现，约束是向下因果关系可以运作的一种方式。因果关系作为约束的概念也被探索作为一种阐明科学概念的方式，例如自我组织、自然选择、适应和控制。

In mathematics

In mathematics, reductionism can be interpreted as the philosophy that all mathematics can (or ought to) be based on a common foundation, which for modern mathematics is usually axiomatic set theory. Ernst Zermelo was one of the major advocates of such an opinion; he also developed much of axiomatic set theory. It has been argued that the generally accepted method of justifying mathematical axioms by their usefulness in common practice can potentially weaken Zermelo's reductionist claim.

Jouko Väänänen has argued for second-order logic as a foundation for mathematics instead of set theory, whereas others have argued for category theory as a foundation for certain aspects of mathematics.

Philosophers of the Enlightenment worked to insulate human free will from reductionism. Descartes separated the material world of mechanical necessity from the world of mental free will. German philosophers introduced the concept of the "noumenal" realm that is not governed by the deterministic laws of "phenomenal" nature, where every event is completely determined by chains of causality. The most influential formulation was by Immanuel Kant, who distinguished between the causal deterministic framework the mind imposes on the world—the phenomenal realm—and the world as it exists for itself, the noumenal realm, which, as he believed, included free will. To insulate theology from reductionism, 19th century post-Enlightenment German theologians, especially Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl, used the Romantic method of basing religion on the human spirit, so that it is a person's feeling or sensibility about spiritual matters that comprises religion.

启蒙运动时期的哲学家致力于将人类的自由意志与还原论隔离开来。笛卡尔将机械必然性的物质世界与精神自由意志的世界分开。德国哲学家引入了“本体”领域的概念，这一领域不受“现象”自然界的决定论法则的支配，在这一领域中，每一个事件都完全由一系列因果关系所决定。最有影响力的公式是伊曼努尔 · 康德提出的，他区分了心智强加于世界的因果决定论框架ーー现象领域ーー和现象领域本身存在的世界ーー本体领域，正如他所相信的，这个领域包括自由意志。为了将神学与还原论隔离开来，19世纪后启蒙时代的德国神学家，尤其是弗里德里希·施莱尔马赫和阿尔布雷赫特·立敕尔，使用了浪漫主义的方法，将宗教建立在人类精神的基础之上，因此，一个人对精神事物的感觉或情感构成了宗教。

The incompleteness theorems of Kurt Gödel, published in 1931, caused doubt about the attainability of an axiomatic foundation for all of mathematics. Any such foundation would have to include axioms powerful enough to describe the arithmetic of the natural numbers (a subset of all mathematics). Yet Gödel proved that, for any consistent recursively enumerable axiomatic system powerful enough to describe the arithmetic of the natural numbers, there are (model-theoretically) true propositions about the natural numbers that cannot be proved from the axioms. Such propositions are known as formally undecidable propositions. For example, the continuum hypothesis is undecidable in the Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory as shown by Cohen.

Most common philosophical understandings of causation involve reducing it to some collection of non-causal facts. Opponents of these reductionist views have given arguments that the non-causal facts in question are insufficient to determine the causal facts.

最常见的哲学上对因果关系的理解包括将它归纳为一些非因果事实的集合。这些简化论观点的反对者认为，所讨论的非因果事实不足以确定因果事实。

In computer science

The role of reduction in computer science can be thought as a precise and unambiguous mathematical formalization of the philosophical idea of "theory reductionism". In a general sense, a problem (or set) is said to be reducible to another problem (or set), if there is a computable/feasible method to translate the questions of the former into the latter, so that, if one knows how to computably/feasibly solve the latter problem, then one can computably/feasibly solve the former. Thus, the latter can only be at least as "hard" to solve as the former.

Reduction in theoretical computer science is pervasive in both: the mathematical abstract foundations of computation; and in real-world performance or capability analysis of algorithms. More specifically, reduction is a foundational and central concept, not only in the realm of mathematical logic and abstract computation in computability (or recursive) theory, where it assumes the form of e.g. Turing reduction, but also in the realm of real-world computation in time (or space) complexity analysis of algorithms, where it assumes the form of e.g. polynomial-time reduction.

In religion

A contrast to reductionism is holism or emergentism. Holism is the idea that, in the whole, items can have properties, known as emergent properties, that are not explainable from the sum of their parts. The principle of holism was summarized concisely by Aristotle in the Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".

与还原论相对的是整体论或浮现论。整体论是这样一种观点，即整体上，项目可以具有一些属性，即所谓的涌现属性，这些属性不能用各个部分的和来解释。亚里士多德在《形而上学》一书中对整体主义原则进行了简明的概括: “整体大于各部分之和”。

Religious reductionism generally attempts to explain religion by explaining it in terms of nonreligious causes. A few examples of reductionistic explanations for the presence of religion are: that religion can be reduced to humanity's conceptions of right and wrong, that religion is fundamentally a primitive attempt at controlling our environments, that religion is a way to explain the existence of a physical world, and that religion confers an enhanced survivability for members of a group and so is reinforced by natural selection. Anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer employed some religious reductionist arguments.

An alternative term for ontological reductionism is fragmentalism, often used in a pejorative sense. Anti-realists use the term fragmentalism in arguments that the world does not exist of separable entities, instead consisting of wholes. For example, advocates of this idea claim that:

本体论还原论的另一个术语是碎片主义，通常用于贬义。反现实主义者在论证中使用“碎片主义”这个术语，认为世界不存在可分离的实体，而是由整体组成。例如，这种观点的支持者声称:

In linguistics

< 封锁报价 >

Linguistic reductionism is the idea that everything can be described or explained by a language with a limited number of concepts, and combinations of those concepts. An example is the language Toki Pona.

The linear deterministic approach to nature and technology promoted a fragmented perception of reality, and a loss of the ability to foresee, to adequately evaluate, in all their complexity, global crises in ecology, civilization and education.

对自然和技术的线性决定论方法促进了对现实的支离破碎的认识，并使人们丧失了预见、充分评估全球生态、文明和教育危机的所有复杂性的能力。

In philosophy

The term fragmentalism is usually applied to reductionist modes of thought, often with the related pejorative term scientism. This usage is popular among some ecological activists:

There is a need now to move away from scientism and the ideology of cause-and-effect determinism toward a radical empiricism, such as William James proposed, as an epistemology of science.

These perspectives are not new; during the early 20th century, William James noted that rationalist science emphasized what he called fragmentation and disconnection.

碎片主义一词通常用于还原主义的思维模式，通常带有相关的贬义词科学主义。这种用法在一些生态活动家中很流行: 现在有必要摆脱科学主义和因果决定论的思想，转向彻底的经验主义，如威廉 · 詹姆斯提出的科学认识论。这些观点并不新鲜; 在20世纪早期，威廉 · 詹姆斯注意到理性主义科学强调他所谓的分裂和脱节。

The concept of downward causation poses an alternative to reductionism within philosophy. This opinion is developed by Peter Bøgh Andersen, Claus Emmeche, Niels Ole Finnemann, and Peder Voetmann Christiansen, among others. These philosophers explore ways in which one can talk about phenomena at a larger-scale level of organization exerting causal influence on a smaller-scale level, and find that some, but not all proposed types of downward causation are compatible with science. In particular, they find that constraint is one way in which downward causation can operate. The notion of causality as constraint has also been explored as a way to shed light on scientific concepts such as self-organization, natural selection, adaptation, and control.

Free will

Main article: Free will

The development of systems thinking has provided methods that seek to describe issues in a holistic rather than a reductionist way, and many scientists use a holistic paradigm. When the terms are used in a scientific context, holism and reductionism refer primarily to what sorts of models or theories offer valid explanations of the natural world; the scientific method of falsifying hypotheses, checking empirical data against theory, is largely unchanged, but the method guides which theories are considered.

系统思维的发展提供了寻求以整体而非简化的方式来描述问题的方法，许多科学家使用整体范式。当术语在科学语境中使用时，整体论和还原论主要指的是什么类型的模型或理论提供对自然世界的有效解释; 证伪假设的科学方法，检查经验数据与理论，大体上是不变的，但方法指导哪些理论被考虑。

Philosophers of the Enlightenment worked to insulate human free will from reductionism. Descartes separated the material world of mechanical necessity from the world of mental free will. German philosophers introduced the concept of the "noumenal" realm that is not governed by the deterministic laws of "phenomenal" nature, where every event is completely determined by chains of causality. The most influential formulation was by Immanuel Kant, who distinguished between the causal deterministic framework the mind imposes on the world—the phenomenal realm—and the world as it exists for itself, the noumenal realm, which, as he believed, included free will. To insulate theology from reductionism, 19th century post-Enlightenment German theologians, especially Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl, used the Romantic method of basing religion on the human spirit, so that it is a person's feeling or sensibility about spiritual matters that comprises religion.

In many cases (such as the kinetic theory of gases), given a good understanding of the components of the system, one can predict all the important properties of the system as a whole. In other systems, especially concerned with life and life's emergent properties (morphogenesis, autopoiesis, and metabolism), emergent properties of the system are said to be almost impossible to predict from knowledge of the parts of the system. Complexity theory studies systems and properties of the latter type.

在许多情况下(例如分子运动论) ，只要对系统的组成部分有很好的了解，就可以预测整个系统的所有重要特性。在其他系统中，特别是关于生命和生命的涌现特性(形态发生、自创生和新陈代谢) ，系统的涌现特性据说几乎不可能从系统各部分的知识中预测。复杂性理论研究系统和后一种类型的性质。

Causation

Most common philosophical understandings of causation involve reducing it to some collection of non-causal facts. Opponents of these reductionist views have given arguments that the non-causal facts in question are insufficient to determine the causal facts.

Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysics opposed reductionism. He refers to this as the "fallacy of the misplaced concreteness". His scheme was to frame a rational, general understanding of phenomena, derived from our reality.

阿尔弗雷德·诺思·怀特黑德的形而上学反对还原论。他称之为“错置具体性谬误”。他的计划是从我们的现实中建立对现象的理性的、普遍的理解。

Criticism

Ecologist Sven Erik Jorgensen makes both theoretical and practical arguments for a holistic method in certain topics of science, especially ecology. He argues that many systems are so complex that they can ever be described in complete detail. In analogy to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, he argues that many interesting ecological phenomena cannot be replicated in laboratory conditions, and so cannot be measured or observed without changing the system in some way. He also indicates the importance of inter-connectedness in biological systems. He believes that science can only progress by outlining questions that are unanswerable and by using models that do not try to explain everything in terms of smaller hierarchical levels of organization, but instead model them on the scale of the system itself, taking into account some (but not all) factors from levels higher and lower in the hierarchy.

生态学家斯文 · 埃里克 · 乔根森在某些科学领域，特别是生态学领域，为整体方法提供了理论和实践两方面的论据。他认为，许多系统是如此复杂，以至于它们可以被完全详细地描述。类比于物理学中的海森堡测不准原理，他认为许多有趣的生态现象不能在实验室条件下复制，因此不能在不以某种方式改变系统的情况下测量或观察。他还指出了生物系统内部相互联系的重要性。他认为，科学只有通过勾勒出无法回答的问题，通过使用模型，而不是试图从较小的组织层次来解释一切，而是根据系统本身的规模来模拟它们，考虑到来自较高层次和较低层次的一些(但不是全部)因素，才能取得进展。

Antireductionism

In cognitive psychology, George Kelly developed "constructive alternativism" as a form of personal construct psychology and an alternative to what he considered "accumulative fragmentalism". For this theory, knowledge is seen as the construction of successful mental models of the exterior world, rather than the accumulation of independent "nuggets of truth".

在认知心理学领域，乔治 · 凯利发展了“建构性替代主义”，作为个人建构心理学的一种形式，也是他所认为的“累积性碎片主义”的替代。在这一理论中，知识被看作是外部世界的成功心智模型的建构，而不是独立“真理块”的积累。

Main article: Antireductionism

A contrast to reductionism is holism or emergentism. Holism is the idea that, in the whole, items can have properties, known as emergent properties, that are not explainable from the sum of their parts. The principle of holism was summarized concisely by Aristotle in the Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".

Fragmentalism

An alternative term for ontological reductionism is fragmentalism, often used in a pejorative sense. Anti-realists use the term fragmentalism in arguments that the world does not exist of separable entities, instead consisting of wholes. For example, advocates of this idea claim that:

The linear deterministic approach to nature and technology promoted a fragmented perception of reality, and a loss of the ability to foresee, to adequately evaluate, in all their complexity, global crises in ecology, civilization and education.

The term fragmentalism is usually applied to reductionist modes of thought, often with the related pejorative term scientism. This usage is popular among some ecological activists:

There is a need now to move away from scientism and the ideology of cause-and-effect determinism toward a radical empiricism, such as William James proposed, as an epistemology of science.

These perspectives are not new; during the early 20th century, William James noted that rationalist science emphasized what he called fragmentation and disconnection.

Such opinions also motivate many criticisms of the scientific method:

The scientific method only acknowledges monophasic consciousness. The method is a specialized system that emphasizes studying small and distinctive parts in isolation, which results in fragmented knowledge.

Alternatives

The development of systems thinking has provided methods that seek to describe issues in a holistic rather than a reductionist way, and many scientists use a holistic paradigm. When the terms are used in a scientific context, holism and reductionism refer primarily to what sorts of models or theories offer valid explanations of the natural world; the scientific method of falsifying hypotheses, checking empirical data against theory, is largely unchanged, but the method guides which theories are considered.

In many cases (such as the kinetic theory of gases), given a good understanding of the components of the system, one can predict all the important properties of the system as a whole. In other systems, especially concerned with life and life's emergent properties (morphogenesis, autopoiesis, and metabolism), emergent properties of the system are said to be almost impossible to predict from knowledge of the parts of the system. Complexity theory studies systems and properties of the latter type.

Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysics opposed reductionism. He refers to this as the "fallacy of the misplaced concreteness". His scheme was to frame a rational, general understanding of phenomena, derived from our reality.

Ecologist Sven Erik Jorgensen makes both theoretical and practical arguments for a holistic method in certain topics of science, especially ecology. He argues that many systems are so complex that they can ever be described in complete detail. In analogy to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, he argues that many interesting ecological phenomena cannot be replicated in laboratory conditions, and so cannot be measured or observed without changing the system in some way. He also indicates the importance of inter-connectedness in biological systems. He believes that science can only progress by outlining questions that are unanswerable and by using models that do not try to explain everything in terms of smaller hierarchical levels of organization, but instead model them on the scale of the system itself, taking into account some (but not all) factors from levels higher and lower in the hierarchy.

In cognitive psychology, George Kelly developed "constructive alternativism" as a form of personal construct psychology and an alternative to what he considered "accumulative fragmentalism". For this theory, knowledge is seen as the construction of successful mental models of the exterior world, rather than the accumulation of independent "nuggets of truth".

}}

• Holism

• Holistic science

• Materialism

• Multiple realizability was used as a source of arguments against reductionism.

• Philosophy of mind

• Physicalism

• Physical ontology

• Scientism

• Symmetry breaking

• Theology

• Two Dogmas of Empiricism

Further reading

• Churchland, Patricia (1986), Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. MIT Press.

• Dawkins, Richard (1976), The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press; 2nd edition, December 1989.

• Dennett, Daniel C. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Simon & Schuster.

• Descartes (1637), Discourses, Part V.

• Dupre, John (1993), The Disorder of Things. Harvard University Press.

• Galison, Peter and David J. Stump, eds. (1996), The Disunity of the Sciences: Boundaries, Contexts, and Power. Stanford University Press.

• Jones, Richard H. (2013), Analysis & the Fullness of Reality: An Introduction to Reductionism & Emergence. Jackson Square Books.

• Laughlin, Robert (2005), A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down. Basic Books.

• Nagel, Ernest (1961), The Structure of Science. New York.

• Pinker, Steven (2002), The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Viking Penguin.

• Ruse, Michael (1988), Philosophy of Biology. Albany, NY.

• Rosenberg, Alexander (2006), Darwinian Reductionism or How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology. University of Chicago Press.

Category:Metatheory of science

范畴: 科学元理论

• Eric Scerri The reduction of chemistry to physics has become a central aspect of the philosophy of chemistry. See several articles by this author.

Category:Metaphysical theories

范畴: 形而上学理论

• Weinberg, Steven (1992), Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist's Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature, Pantheon Books.

Category:Sociological theories

范畴: 社会学理论

• Weinberg, Steven (2002) describes what he terms the culture war among physicists in his review of A New Kind of Science.

Category:Analytic philosophy

类别: 分析哲学

• Capra, Fritjof (1982), The Turning Point.

Category:Epistemology of science

范畴: 科学认识论

• Lopez, F., Il pensiero olistico di Ippocrate. Riduzionismo, antiriduzionismo, scienza della complessità nel trattato sull'Antica Medicina, vol. IIA, Ed. Pubblisfera, Cosenza Italy 2008.

Category:Cognition

类别: 认知

• Maureen L Pope, Personal construction of formal knowledge, Humanities Social Science and Law, 13.4, December, 1982, pp. 3–14

Category:Epistemological theories

范畴: 认识论理论

• Tara W. Lumpkin, Perceptual Diversity: Is Polyphasic Consciousness Necessary for Global Survival? December 28, 2006, http://www.bioregionalanimism.com/2006/12/is-polyphasic-consciousness-necessary.html

Category:Emergence

类别: 涌现

This page was moved from wikipedia:en:Reductionism. Its edit history can be viewed at 还原论/edithistory