Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 18:59:20
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: BHA: Science, theology and witchcraft


Tim Dayton wrote:

"Can't we distinguish between two kinds of reduction, one of which is 
what we mean by reductionism: exhaustive reduction, in which all 
elements of something are supposedly explained by appeal to a prior 
causal level, without the intervention of higher or later levels; and 
explanatory reduction, in which an attempt is made to distinguish 
those elements of something that may be explained in terms of a prior 
level or levels and those distinctive to it.  Explanatory reduction 
would seem to be required by the very concept of emergence (emergence 
only makes sense if there is also present that which does not 
emerge)."

The description of "explanatory reduction" appears to mean causal 
explanation as applied to emergent entities.  The argument that 
"emergence only makes sense if there is also present that which does 
not emerge" is not persuasive if "that which does not emerge" is construed 
in an absolute sense, because the things from which something emerged may 
themselves have emerged from other things earlier.  The conceptual 
requirement of the term "emergence", namely that logically there must be 
non-emergent stuff from which something emerges, can be satisifed in this 
relative way.  Perhaps it would be said that the relative version would have 
to stop at some point to yield an ultimate ground from which all 
subsequent emergences take place.  I believe RB takes this possibility 
into account in allowing for what he calls "ultimata" (about which he seems 
inconclusive).  So things might be emergent from such ultimata, but not all 
emergent things have to emerge from ultimata.

At any rate, I feel it is confusing to designate what is here called 
"explanatory reduction" a reduction at all.  RB certainly makes clear that 
every emergent entity can be given a complete causal explanation in terms of 
the things that exist (including generative mechanisms) prior to emergence - 
that is his "ubiquity determinism" which he supports.  I don't see how an 
"explanatory reduction" is any different from this type of causal account.

What RB objects to is the view that such a complete causal account was 
determinate in advance.  One can sustain that view only if the world 
is a closed system, an assumption that has nothing other than faith to 
back it.  The concept of "exhaustive reduction" certainly fits in with 
this view.  My bias is to reserve the term "reduction" for this kind of 
account.

Louis Irwin




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