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| reductive materialism | |
|---|---|
| Name | Reductive materialism |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Main interests | Metaphysics, Philosophy of mind, Science |
| Notable ideas | Mind–brain identity theory, Physicalism |
reductive materialism Reductive materialism is the view that all phenomena are ultimately explicable by physical substances and processes, and that higher-level properties can be reduced to lower-level physical properties. Its advocates situate the thesis within debates about the nature of reality and argue for ontological parsimony by appealing to empirical sciences and analytic philosophy. Critics counter with arguments from qualia, multiple realizability, and normative domains.
Reductive materialism asserts that mental states, biological functions, and social phenomena are, in principle, identical to or fully determined by physical states described by Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Marie Curie, Erwin Schrödinger, and Albert Einstein-style theories, and thus amenable to reduction via explanation in the manner of Antoine Lavoisier, John Dalton, Dmitri Mendeleev, Louis Pasteur, and Gregor Mendel. Proponents often align with figures such as J. J. C. Smart, U. T. Place, Hilary Putnam, Frank Jackson (in earlier work), David Lewis, and Daniel Dennett while drawing on methodological support from institutions like the Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences, Max Planck Society, Royal Institution, and laboratories such as Cavendish Laboratory and CERN. Opponents frequently reference critics like Thomas Nagel, Frank Jackson (later work), John Searle, Jerry Fodor, Patricia Churchland, and Colin McGinn.
The roots trace to ancient naturalists and mechanists such as Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, and later to early modern figures including René Descartes (as a foil), Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz whose monadology spurred debate. The 19th-century consolidation of chemistry and physiology in works by Claude Bernard, Charles Darwin, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, and Emil du Bois-Reymond fostered confidence in physical explanations. The 20th century saw analytic formulations in the works of Bertrand Russell, W. V. O. Quine, Gilbert Ryle, J. J. C. Smart, and philosophers associated with departments at University of Cambridge, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Oxford University. Developments in neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, Yale School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, and projects like Human Brain Project and BRAIN Initiative renewed emphasis on reductive strategies.
Foundational arguments appeal to the success of reduction in chemistry and biology exemplified by Antoine Lavoisier, Louis Pasteur, Gregor Mendel, Watson and Crick, Rosalind Franklin, and Francis Crick. Reduction is typically defended via type identity theory (associated with U. T. Place and J. J. C. Smart), functional reduction as in work influenced by Hilary Putnam and David Lewis, and token identity considerations discussed by Donald Davidson and Frank Jackson. Key appeals invoke methodological naturalism championed by Charles Sanders Peirce and Karl Popper, and metaphysical parsimony echoed in writings of William of Ockham and Alexius Meinong critics. Philosophers often marshal arguments from causal closure in the tradition of Pierre-Simon Laplace and statistical mechanics formulations tied to Ludwig Boltzmann and Josiah Willard Gibbs.
Prominent objections include the knowledge argument advanced by Frank Jackson (earlier formulation), the what-it-is-like critique of Thomas Nagel, and the Chinese room argument of John Searle. Multiple realizability objections were developed by Hilary Putnam and Jerry Fodor, challenging simple type reduction, while supervenience analyses by David Lewis and Jaegwon Kim probe dependence relations. Arguments about the explanatory gap feature in debates referencing Colin McGinn and Ned Block, and ethical or normative domains are defended as resistant by thinkers linked to Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and G. E. M. Anscombe-style moral critique. Scientific anti-reductionism positions are exemplified in historiographies by Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and critics aligned with Imre Lakatos.
Variants include type identity theory (associated with J. J. C. Smart), token identity approaches (associated with David Armstrong, Donald Davidson), functional reductionism influenced by Hilary Putnam and Daniel Dennett, eliminative materialism advocated by Paul Churchland and Patricia Churchland, and nonreductive physicalism defended by Jerry Fodor and Jaegwon Kim. Related positions encompass emergentism advanced by C. D. Broad and later thinkers at University of Cambridge, realization theories discussed by Sydney Shoemaker, and supervenience frameworks used by David Lewis and Frank Jackson.
For philosophy of mind, reductive materialism implies that mental phenomena such as perception, belief, and intentionality can be identified with neurophysiological states studied in laboratories like Salk Institute and Salk Institute for Biological Studies or modeled in computational systems developed at MIT Media Lab, Stanford University, and Carnegie Mellon University. It motivates research programs connecting to neuropsychology findings from clinics at Massachusetts General Hospital and cognitive science labs influenced by Noam Chomsky (as interlocutor), Herbert A. Simon, Allen Newell, and Marvin Minsky. Debates engage experimentalists at Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Columbia University, and University College London while influencing AI research in groups at Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and IBM Research.
Current disputes occur across faculties and centers such as Harvard University, Stanford University, Princeton University, University of Oxford, and institutes like the Allen Institute for Brain Science and Wellcome Trust. Interdisciplinary dialogues involve neuroscientists like Christof Koch, philosophers such as Daniel Dennett and Patricia Churchland, cognitive scientists including Steven Pinker and Anil Seth, and AI researchers in corporations like DeepMind and OpenAI. Topics include neurophilosophy initiatives at Rutgers University, computational modeling inspired by Norbert Wiener and Alan Turing, and empirical constraints from neuroimaging modalities developed at Massachusetts General Hospital and Karolinska Institutet. Emerging work on consciousness, information theory, and integrated information theory draws attention from scholars linked to Giulio Tononi and critics represented by Christof Koch and David Chalmers.