还原论

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.

勒内·笛卡尔（René Descartes）在其1662年出版的《人论》(De Homine，1662)中宣称：非人类动物可以被简化为自动机，从本质上讲，是这种消化鸭的机械复杂版本。

还原论是一种有关现象之间的联系的哲学观点，认为现象可以用其他更简单或更基本的现象来描述 。它是一种将一个复杂的系统解释为其各部分的总和的思想和哲学立场。

定义

《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”，并将其划分为三部分:

本体论还原论: 一种认为所有现实均是由最小数量的部分组成的信念。

方法论还原论: 一种用尽可能小的对象来提供解释的科学尝试。

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。

还原论可以应用于任何现象，包括对象、问题、解释、理论和意义。

对于科学而言，方法论还原论试图从个体、组成部分及其相互作用的角度对整个系统进行解释。例如，对气体温度的降低不能超过其运动着的分子的平均动能。托马斯 · 内格尔（Thomas Nagel）和其他人还谈到了“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)。

在一种非常简化的，有时是有争议的形式中，还原论被认为暗示一个系统只是它的部分的总和。然而，与之有着细微差别的观点是，一个系统完全由它的部分组成，但该系统将具有任何部分都没有的特征(这在本质上是涌现论的基础)。“机械论则侧重于解释整体更高层次的特征是如何从部分中产生的。”

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.

不过也有作者使用另外的定义。例如，约翰·鲍金霍恩（John Polkinghorne）所称的“观念”或“认识论”的还原论是西蒙·布莱克本 （Simon Blackburn）和金在权 （Jaegwon Kim）所使用的定义: 还原论从形式上用另一类型的其他事实或实体替换论述中提及的某种类型的事实或实体，从而在它们之间提供一种联系。理查德 · 琼斯（Richard Jones）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还原的同时，也肯定了不同程度的复杂性需要不同的概念。

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'."

还原论的观点可以用解释的“层次”来表达，根据需要可以将较高的层次还原到较低的层次。这种对理解层次的使用在一定程度上反映了人类在记忆细节方面的局限性。然而，“大多数哲学家会坚持认为，我们在概念化现实中的角色(我们对理解层次的需要)不会改变现实中不同层次的组织确实有不同的‘属性’这一事实。”

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.

还原论还应与消除论区别开来：还原论者不否认现象的存在，而是用另一种现实来解释现象。消除论者否认现象本身的存在。例如，消除论者通过解释物理和化学过程来否认生命的存在。

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.

还原论并没有排除所谓涌现现象的存在，但它确实暗示了完全理解这些现象的能力，从它们组成的过程来看。这种还原论的理解与本体论或强涌现论有很大的不同，本体论或强涌现论认为，在“涌现”中出现的东西不仅仅是它从本体论意义上或认识论意义上出现的过程的总和 。然而，一些物理学家声称还原论和涌现论是互补的: 对自然过程的解释二者都是必需的。

类型

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。

本体论还原论

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".)

本体论还原论认为现实是由最少数量的实体或物质组成的。这种说法通常是形而上学的，是一元论最常见的一种形式，这实际上是断言所有的对象、属性和事件都可以简化为一个单一的实体。(本体论还原论者的二元论者则会认为一切事物都可以简化为两个实体——举个可能的例子，二元论者可能会声称现实是由“物质”和“精神”组成的。)

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.

理查德·琼斯将本体论还原论分为两种：物质还原论（例如，将精神还原为物质）和在自然界中运作的结构数量的减少(例如，将一种物理作用力还原为另一种)。这种划分使得科学家和哲学家们在对后者持反对态度的同时不得不承认前者。

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.

南希·墨菲（Nancey Murphy） 断言有两种本体论还原论: 一种声称整体不过是它们的部分；而另一种则是原子论还原论，认为整体不是“真实的真实（really real）”。她承认，“真实的真实（really real）”这个短语显然毫无意义，但她试图解释这两种还原论之间假定的差异。

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，根本上是不存在的。

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。

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.

表征本体论还原论是认为存在的每一项都是一个和项。它确信每个可感知的事物是复杂程度较低的事物的总和。将生物事物还原为化学事物的表征本体论已被普遍接受。

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.

类型本体论还原论的观点是，每一种类型的事物都是事物的总和，每一种可感知的事物类型都是复杂程度较低的事物类型的和。将生物事物还原为化学事物的类型本体论已被普遍摒弃。

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

迈克尔·鲁斯（Michael Ruse）批评本体论还原论是对活力论的一种不恰当的论证。

方法论还原论

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减少为最小的可能实体 。在生物学的背景下，这意味着从其潜在的生物化学和分子过程来解释所有生物现象。有力的证明是，基因（经典遗传单位）实质上是一种大分子——脱氧核糖核酸（DNA）。统计力学则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调和。

理论还原论

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.

理论还原是一个更一般的而理论吸收一个特殊的理论的过程。例如，开普勒的行星运动定律和伽利略的地球物体运动理论都可以还原为牛顿力学理论，因为前者的所有解释力都包含在后者之中。此外，这种还原被认为是有好处的，因为牛顿力学是一个更普遍的理论——也就是说，它比伽利略或开普勒的理论解释了更多的事件。除了科学理论之外，理论归纳通常是一种解释包含另一种解释的过程。

在科学中

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.

还原论的思想和方法构成了许多现代科学发展良好的主题的基础，包括许多物理、化学和分子生物学。经典力学尤其可以被看作是一种还原论的框架。例如，我们根据太阳系的组成部分（太阳和行星）及其相互作用来理解太阳系 。统计力学则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调和。

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更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基于物理，分子生物学是基于化学，但当一个人思考不那么严格定义的知识领域时，类似的陈述就会变得有争议。例如，人们对声称社会学是以心理学为基础，或者经济学是以社会学和心理学为基础的说法往往会持保留意见。尽管这些话题之间存在明显的联系（例如，大多数人会同意心理学可以影响并影响经济学），但这些说法很难得到证实。还原论效用的限制源于复杂系统的涌现特性，这种特性在组织的某些层次上更为常见。例如，一些人声称复杂的系统从本质上是不可简化的，需要一个整体的方法来理解它们，因而不同意进化心理学和社会生物学的某些观点。

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（参见理查德·道金斯（Richard Dawkins）的模因概念）。在他的《盲眼钟表匠》一书中，道金斯引入了“层次还原论 ”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，而每一个组织的层次结构只能用层次结构的下一级对象来描述。他以计算机为例，从硬盘、处理器和内存的角度阐释了层次还原论，而不是基于逻辑门的层次，或者更简单的半导体介质中的电子层次。

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

量子整体论是一种最低可能的还原理论。

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，不恰当使用还原论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（Robert Ulanowicz）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层次上创造结构的方式，而不受较低层次的组织细节的影响。他提倡使用信息理论作为研究自然系统倾向的框架 。乌兰诺维茨（Ulanowicz）把这些还原论的批评归因于哲学家卡尔 · 波普尔（ Karl Popper ）和生物学家罗伯特 · 罗森（Robert Rosen）。

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（Stuart Kauffman）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，涌现尤为重要。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次上尤其明显，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。

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·沃伦·安德森（Philip Warren Anderson）在他1972年发表在《科学》（Science）杂志的论文《More is different》中使用了对称性破缺是一个涌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——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——一门科学的基本实体遵循在层次中先于它的科学原理的原则。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。”

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.

诸如控制论和系统论这样的学科隐含着非还原论，有时达到了用更高层次的现象来解释特定层次上的现象的程度，在某种意义上，这是还原论的对立面。

在数学中

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，还原论可以解释为所有数学都可以或应该建立在一个共同基础上的哲学，而对于现代数学来说，这个基础通常是公理化集合论。策梅洛（Ernst Zermelo）是这种观点的主要倡导者之一，他也对公理化集合论做出了许多发展。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还原论主张。

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.

Jouko Väänänen 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。

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（Kurt Gödel）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含足够强大的公理来描述所有自然数的算术(所有数学的子集)。然而，哥德尔证明了，对于足以描述自然数算数的任何一致的可递归枚举的公理系统，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的不可判定的命题。例如，在科恩（Cohen）提出的 Zermelo-Fraenkel 集合论中，连续统假设是不可判定的。

在计算机科学中

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”哲学思想的精确和明确的数学形式化。一般意义上，如果有一个可计算/可行的方法将一个问题或集合转化为另一个问题或集合，那么那么这个问题或集合就是可约化的。如果一个人知道如何可计算/可行地解决后一个问题，那么他就可以可计算/可行地解决前者。因此，后者至少像前者一样“难”解决。

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.

理论计算机科学的还原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，还原是一个基础和核心的概念，不但出现在数学逻辑和可计算性(或递归)理论的抽象计算领域（在这些领域里它呈现出图灵还原的形式），而且出现在现实世界的计算领域，比如在时间(或空间)算法复杂性分析中，它呈现出多项式时间还原的形式。

在宗教中

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：宗教可以被还原为人类是或非的概念，从根本上说，宗教是控制环境的一种原始尝试，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（Edward Burnett tyler）和詹姆斯·弗雷泽（James George fraser）就采用了一些宗教还原论的观点。

在语言学中

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.

语言还原论的观点是，任何事物都可以只用有限数量的概念，以及这些概念的组合来描述或解释 。一个例子就是道本语。

在哲学中

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.

在哲学中，向下因果关系的概念提供了一种还原论的替代方法。这个观点是由彼得·博格·安徒生（Peter Bøgh Andersen），克劳斯（Claus Emmeche），尼尔斯·奥立（Niels Ole Finnemann），和 彼得·克里斯蒂安森（Peder Voetmann Christiansen ）等人提出的。这些哲学家探索人们可以在更大范围的组织层面上谈论的现象，在更小范围的组织层面上施加因果影响的方式，并发现一些(但不是所有)向下的因果类型与科学是相容的 。特别地，他们发现约束是向下因果关系的一种运作方式。因果关系作为约束的概念也作为一种阐明科学概念的方式，例如自组织、自然选择、适应和控制。

自由意志

Main article: Free will

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分割开来。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”自然的决定论法则的控制，在“现象”自然中，每一个事件都完全由一系列因果关系所决定 。最有影响力的是伊曼努尔·康德(Immanuel Kant)，他区分了思维强加于世界(现象界)的因果决定论框架和它自己存在的世界(本体界)，他认为本体界包括自由意志。为了将神学与还原论相互剥离开来，19世纪后启蒙时代的德国神学家们，特别是施莱马赫(Friedrich Schleiermacher)和阿尔布雷希特·里施(Albrecht Ritschl)采用了浪漫主义的方法，将宗教建立在人类精神的基础上——一个人对精神事物的感觉或情感形成了宗教。

因果关系

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.

大多数关于因果关系的哲学理解都将因果关系还原为一些非因果事实的集合。对这些还原论观点持反对意见的人认为，所讨论的非因果事实不足以确定因果事实。

批评

反还原论主义

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".

与还原论相对的是整体论或涌现论。整体论认为，事物从整体上看具有的一些属性——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》一书中对整体主义的原则进行了简明的概括: “整体大于部分之和”。

碎片主义

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，通常带有贬义色彩。反现实主义者使用碎片主义这个术语来论证世界不是由可分离的实体存在的，而是由整体组成的。例如，这种观点的支持者声称:

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碎片化感知，并使人们丧失了预见和充分评估全球生态、文明和教育危机复杂性的能力。

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:

“碎片主义”一词通常用来指还原主义的思维模式，通常与贬义的“科学主义”相关。这种用法在一些生态活动家中很流行:

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. 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（William James ）提出的科学认识论。

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

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。

Such opinions also motivate many criticisms of the scientific method:

这些观点也引发了对科学方法的许多批评：

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. 科学方法只承认单相意识（monophasic consciousness）。这种方法强调孤立地研究小而独特的部分特定系统，从而导致知识的碎片化。

替代方案

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，并且许多科学家开始使用整体范式。在科学语境中使用这些术语时，整体论和还原论主要指的是什么样的模型或理论提供了对自然世界的有效解释。证伪假设、根据理论检验经验数据的科学方法在大体上是不变的，但这些方法指导哪些理论是值得考虑的。

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(例如气体动力学理论) ，只要对系统的组成部分有很好的了解，就可以预测系统作为一个整体的所有重要性质。在其他系统中，特别是与生命或与有关生命的涌现特性(形态发生、自生成和新陈代谢) ，从系统各部分的知识来预测系统的涌现特性被认为几乎是不可能的。复杂性理论研究系统和后一种类型的性质。

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（Alfred North Whitehead）的形而上学反对还原论。他将此称为“错位的具体性谬误”。他的计划是从我们的现实出发，对现象建立一种理性的、普遍的理解。

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（Sven Erik Jorgensen ）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，以至于永远无法完全详细地描述它们。与物理学中的海森堡不确定性原理类似，他认为许多有趣的生态现象无法在实验室条件下复制，因此如果不以某种方式改变系统，就无法测量或观察。他还指出了生物系统中相互联系的重要性。他认为，科学只能通过概述无法回答的问题，并使用模型来进步，并且这些模型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，同时考虑到来自层次结构中更高和更低层次的一些（但不是全部）因素。

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（George Kelly）发展了“构建替代主义”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的心理模型的构建，而不是独立的“真理金块”的累积。

}}

• 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

拓展阅读

• 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

• 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

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