UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA

GUSTAVO CAPONI
GRUPO ESTUDOS EM FILOSOFIA E HISTÓRIA DA BIOLOGIA
FRITZ MÜLLER-DESTERRO

WILLIAM WIMSATT & SAHOTRA SARKAR

REDUCTIONSM
[PP.696-703]

IN

SAHOTRA SARKAR, & JESSICA PFEIFFER

(EDS)

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

AN ENCYCLOPEDIA

☼
ROUTLEDGE
LONDON
2006
REALISM
Churchland, Paul (1985), ‘‘The Ontological Status of
Observables: In Praise of Superempirical Virtues,’’ in
Paul Churchland and Clifford Hooker (eds.), Images of
Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Earman, John (1993), ‘‘Underdetermination, Realism and
Reason,’’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy 18: 19–38.
Fine, Arthur (1984), ‘‘The Natural Ontological Attitude,’’
in J. Leplin (ed.), Scientific Realism. Berkeley and Los
Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 83–108.
Giere, Ron (1983), ‘‘Testing Theoretical Hypotheses,’’ in
John Earman (ed.), Testing Scientific Theories: Minne-
sota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 10. Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Hacking, Ian (1983), Representing and Intervening: Intro-
ductory Topics in the Philosophy of Science. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hempel, Carl (1965), Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New
York: Free Press.
Kitcher, Philip (1993), The Advancement of Science. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Kripke, Saul (1980), Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Black-
well.
Kuhn, Thomas (1962), The Structure of Scientific Revolu-
tions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kukla, André (1998), Studies in Scientific Realism. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Lakatos, Imre (1970), ‘‘Falsification and the Methodology
of Scientific Research Programs,’’ in Imre Lakatos and
Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowl-
edge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 91–196.
Laudan, Larry (1981), ‘‘A Confutation of Convergent Re-
alism,’’ Philosophy of Science 48: 19–49.
Laudan, Larry, and Jarrett Leplin (1991), ‘‘Underdetermi-
nation and the Empirical Equivalence of Theories,’’
Journal of Philosophy 88: 449–472.
Leplin, Jarrett (ed.) (1984a), Scientific Realism. Berkeley
and LA: University of California Press.
——— (ed.) (1984b). ‘‘Truth and Scientific Progress,’’ in
J. Leplin (ed.), Scientific Realism. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 193–218.
REDUCTIONISM
Reductionism is the thesis that the results of inquiry
in one domain—be they concepts, heuristics, laws,
or theories—can be understood or are explained by
the conceptual resources of another, more funda-
mental domain (Nagel 1961; Sarkar 1998). Thus
chemistry is supposed to be reducible to physics
(see Chemistry, Philosophy of ); within physics,
thermodynamics is supposed to be reducible to the
kinetic theory (see Kinetic Theory); Mendelian ge-
netics is supposed to be reducible to molecular
696
——— (ed.) (1997a), A Novel Defense of Scientific Realism.
New York: Oxford University Press.
——— (ed.) (1997b), ‘‘The Underdetermination of Total
Theories,’’ Erkenntnis 47: 203–215.
Leplin, Jarrett, and Larry Laudan (1993), ‘‘Determination
Underdeterred,’’ Analysis 53: 8–15.
Levin, Michael (1984), ‘‘What Kind of Explanation Is
Truth?’’ in J. Leplin (ed.), Scientific Realism. Berkeley
and LA: University of California Press, 124–140.
Maxwell, Grover (1962), ‘‘The Ontological Status of The-
oretical Entities,’’ in Herbert Feigl and Grover Max-
well (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of
Science, Volume III: Scientific Explanation, Space and
Time. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
3–27.
Psillos, Stathis (1999), Scientific Realism: How Science
Tracks Truth. New York: Routledge.
Putnam, Hilary (1978), Meaning and the Moral Sciences.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, lecture II.
Shapere, Dudley (1982), ‘‘The Concept of Observation in
Science,’’ Philosophy of Science 49: 485–525.
Scerri, Eric (2001), ‘‘The Recently Claimed Observation of
Atomic Orbitals and Some Related Philosophical
Issues,’’ in Jeffrey Barrett and J. McKenzie Alexander
(eds.), PSA00, Part I, Contributed Papers. East Lansing,
MI: Philosophy of Science Association, 76–89.
Stanford, Kyle (2001), ‘‘Refusing the Devil’s Bargain: What
Kind of Underdetermination Should We Take Serious-
ly?’’ in Jeffrey Barrett and J. McKenzie Alexander (eds.),
PSA00, Part I, Contributed Papers. East Lansing, MI:
Philosophy of Science Association, 76–89.
van Fraassen, Bas C (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
——— (1989), Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
See also Abduction; Empiricism; Instrumentalism;
Observation; Scientific Models; Scientific Progress;
Theories; Underdetermination of Theories
genetics (see Genetics; Molecular Biology); and so
on. Reductionism can be viewed both as describing
a research strategy or heuristic (how research
should be pursued) and as a claim that the results
of such research justify the assertion that one do-
main is being reduced to another. This article will
concern both these aspects.
From the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s, philoso-
phers commonly regarded reduction as a relation
among theories, theoretical vocabularies, and laws.

Nagel’s (1961) influential analysis reflected the then
contemporary linguistic orientations: One theory
reduced to another if the theoretical vocabulary re-
ferring to its entities and properties were definable,
and its laws (logically) derivable, from that of the
other—connected by empirical identifications, cor-
relations, or reconstructive definitions (see Nagel,
Ernest). Essentially this model of reduction extends
the deductive-nomological model of explanation to
the situation in which the explanandum is itself a law
(of the reduced theory) (see Explanation; Hempel,
Carl Gustav). Nagel also added ‘‘nonformal,’’ or
pragmatic, conditions that had to be satisfied for a
reduction to be scientifically valuable. These condi-
tions are perhaps the most lasting contributions of
Nagel’s account, but in the 1960s and 1970s, they
were seldom noted—the formal properties were of
central concern.
Schaffner (1967) extended Nagel’s account to
allow approximations and ‘‘strong analogies’’ in
connecting theories—situations in which theories
did not match exactly after a putative reduction,
agreeing in some predictions but diverging in
others: when one theory succeeded another, or a
higher-level theory was explained and corrected
by a more exact lower-level account. Theories at
different levels of phenomena could supposedly
thereby be successively reduced to those of the
lowest compositional level or most fundamental
theory, indicating the derivative character and the
in principle dispensability of the things reduced.
This familiar philosophical gambit should invite
suspicion: Whatever else it accomplishes, an in prin-
ciple claim reliably indicates that it has not yet been
achieved in practice. Should science be satisfied with
such in principle claims? If so, how are these ever to
be established? If not, what alternatives should be
explored (Wimsatt 1976)? Typically, ‘‘methodologi-
cal’’ reductionists urge the superiority of reduction-
ist aims but seldom discuss methods—no practical
reductionist problem-solving heuristic, or anything
from the supposedly irrelevant ‘‘context of discov-
ery.’’ These are bothersome lacunae: If scientific
work is reductionist, it should be discernible in the
practice of science.
This unitary account of reduction has long dis-
solved, leaving a polyphonic disunity. Wimsatt
(1979), Hooker (1981), and Sarkar (1998) review
the relevant literature. On the one hand, studies
from different sciences have become needlessly
decoupled, seldom citing one another; on the
other, they have become more responsive to actual
scientific practice—especially in biology. This arti-
cle concentrates on biology, but the analysis is
REDUCTIONISM
intended to extend to mechanistic explanations
throughout the cognitive, social, and physical
sciences (see Explanation; Mechanism).
The perceived unity of the Nagel-Schaffner ac-
count was an artifact of the focus on structural or
logical rather than functional features, when interest
in reduction served foundationalist aims of increas-
ing philosophical rigor, epistemological certainty,
and ontological economy. These philosophical
goals seldom matched the goals of scientific research
even within contexts in which that research explicitly
involved the pursuit of reductions (Schaffner 1974;
Wimsatt 1976). Sarkar (1998) distinguished three
important types of scientific reductions (see also
Nickles 1973):
. Intralevel reduction, including successional re-
duction (Wimsatt 1976), the type of reduction
involved in theory succession;
. Abstract interlevel reduction, in which levels of
organization are distinguished, and upper-level
features explained, using lower-level ones;
and
. Spatial interlevel or strong reduction, in which
the levels of organization are defined compo-
sitionally in physical space.
Prior formal accounts commonly conflated these
three different types of reduction. Scientific reduc-
tions of any of these sorts are not the global and
complete systematizations traditionally envisioned
by philosophers. They are usually partial, local,
conditional, and context dependent—that is, de-
pendent on the specific mechanisms involved,
and their associated ceteris paribus conditions (for
interlevel reductions), or on the character and
conditions of approximation used (for intralevel
reductions). Thus, reductions do not necessarily
lead to the unification of the sciences into a whole
that satisfies traditional philosophical criteria for
coherence and unity (see Unity and Disunity of
Science).
Intralevel reductions are common in mathemati-
cally expressed theories and models. The most im-
portant type of intralevel reductions are successional
reductions (see below under ‘‘Intralevel Reduc-
tions’’). These typically localize formal similarities
and differences between earlier and later, or more
approximate and exact, theories of the same phe-
nomena through mathematical transformations,
thereby aiding succession and elaboration of the
later theory and delimiting conditions for safe and
effective heuristic use of the former.
In abstract interlevel reductions, levels of orga-
nization are distinguished in an abstract space. For
697
REDUCTIONISM
instance, in classical genetics before the molecular
era (see Genetics), the genome was represented
hierarchically from a single allele to multiple alleles
at a single locus, to linkage groups, and finally
to the entire multilocus genotype (Sarkar 1998,
Ch. 5). Properties of the entire multilocus genotype
(that is, the whole organism) were supposed to be
reducible to those at lower levels of this hierarchy.
In condensed matter physics (Batterman 2002), hi-
erarchical models of physical systems in phase
space provide another potential example of such
reductions. In biology, abstract interlevel reduction
is typically a prelude to spatial interlevel reduc-
tion (for instance, from classical genetics to molec-
ular biology). However, in physics, these abstract
reductions often occur in phase-space representa-
tions and, thus, do not show the same pattern.
This type of reduction does not raise any unique
significant philosophical concerns not shared by
the spatial type of interlevel reduction and will
not be discussed further here (for more discussion,
see Sarkar 1998, Chs. 3 and 5); from here on, in-
terlevel reduction will be taken to mean spatial
interlevel reduction.
Spatial interlevel reductions are compositional—
localizing, identifying, and articulating mech-
anisms that explain upper-level phenomena and
entities, all represented as entities in physical
space. Reductionist accounts in complex sciences
are commonly interlevel—for instance, explaining
Mach bands in terms of lateral inhibition in neural
networks (von Bekesy 1967), behavior of genes in
terms of DNA (Sarkar 1998), or gases in terms of
clouds of molecules (see Kinetic Theory). Reduc-
tions of this sort have also traditionally been called
mechanistic explanations in the literature (Nagel
1961) (see Mechanism). Aggregativity, the claim
that the whole is nothing more than the sum of
its parts, is also commonly associated with such
interlevel reductions. It is the proper opposite to
emergence (see Emergence). Like interlevel reduc-
tions, aggregative relations are compositional. But
aggregativity requires more. System properties that
are aggregates of parts’ properties represent degen-
erate cases where the organization of parts does not
matter: They are invariant over organizational
rearrangements. It is—roughly—a reduction with-
out a mediating mechanism. Mechanistic models
often start with many aggregative simplifying
assumptions but add organizational features as
they develop. As with intralevel replacements,
some things (the aggregates) seem dispensable,
though for different reasons: They are not required
in addition because they are ‘‘nothing more than’’
the reducing things.
698
Intralevel Reduction
In intralevel reductions, the representation of the
system being investigated is not assumed to be
hierarchical or otherwise organized into levels.
For instance, in biology, during heritability analy-
sis (Sarkar 1998, Ch. 4), phenotypic variation in
populations is presumed to be at least partly ex-
plainable by, or reducible to, genotypic variation:
No assumption is made about the structure and
organization of the genotype. The reduction of
geometrical optics to physical optics similarly
involves no claim about organization (see Schaff-
ner 1967); the reduction of Newtonian gravitation
to general relativity concerns all of space-time and
makes no claim about hierarchical organization
(see Space-Time).
The most interesting type of intralevel reduction
is successional reduction, where one theory suc-
ceeds another and the earlier theory gets reduced
to the later one. These reductions relate theories or
models of entities at the same level of organization
or theories that are not level specific. They are
relationships between theoretical structures where
one theory or model is transformed into another
(often via limiting approximations) to localize simi-
larities and differences between them. Since such
derivations involve approximations, they are not
truth-preserving deductions (see Approximation).
‘Derivations’ in this context is not the logical no-
tion of deduction: In one sense, it is weaker insofar
as it requires weaker formal assumptions; in anoth-
er sense, it is stronger because the approximations
and idealizations involved typically make impli-
cit empirical assumptions (Leggett 1987 provides
a discussion, though limited to the context of
physics).
A terminological issue about the use of ‘reduc-
tion’ in contexts of theory succession should be
noted: Sometimes, it is said that the later, more
exact, or more complete theory reduces in the limit
to the other (Nickles 1973). Thus, special relativity
‘reduces’ to classical mechanics in the limit as v/c !
0 (where v is the velocity of a body and c is the
velocity of light); either by letting velocity of the
moving entity, v ! 0 (a ‘‘real’’ engineering approx-
imation for velocities much smaller than the speed
of light, c) or by letting c ! 1 (a counterfactual
transformation yielding Newton’s conception of
instantaneous action at a distance). This usage of
‘reduction’ is nonstandard in scientific contexts and
parasitic on that of reduction in mathematics to
indicate the specification of a particular value to a
variable that can range over a set of values or some
other operation that shows that one problem is a

special case of another problem. There is obviously
no question of the predecessor theory explaining its
successor.
Localizing similarities by successional reduction
and differences between theories (in aspects not
captured in the reduction and in the transforma-
tions used) serves multiple functions in the succes-
sion of the newer theory (Wimsatt 1976; Nickles
1973). It co-opts the evidence for, and legiti-
mates the use of, the older theory where they
agree (as v ! 0 in the case of Newtonian mechanics
and special relativity); may establish conceptual
connections between them (as c ! 1 in the same
case); and locates contexts to pursue confirmation,
testing, and elaboration of the newer theory where
they disagree. Limiting conditions show where the
older theory is a valid approximation and how
rapidly it breaks down.
Finally, successional reduction is a kind of simi-
larity relation. A series of pairwise successional
reductions will usually be intransitive: Differences
accumulate in theoretical successions because of
approximations and idealizations, ultimately be-
coming too great to manage. Also, reductionist
transformations involve scientific work, and are
not achieved gratuitously. Since their scientific
functions usually require relating the new theory
only to its immediate predecessor, one rarely goes
any further. (There is no scientific relevance
in tracing special relativity back to Aristotelian
physics!) Thus, successional reduction is often in-
transitive by default, even when possible other-
wise—which it often is not, because of cumulative
differences. If mappings are too complex to con-
struct transformations relating immediate succes-
sors, then reduction fails, and the older theory and
its ontology may be discarded. Instead of reduc-
tion, there is theory replacement. So this kind of
reduction can be eliminative—but characteristical-
ly only when it fails (Wimsatt 1976). Ramsey (1994)
and Batterman (2002) elaborate such reductions,
and Batterman’s discussion of the role of singu-
larities shows another way in which reductions
can fail without being eliminative. Sarkar (1998)
discusses approximations, and Wimsatt (1987)
connects these issues to related uses of false models.
Interlevel Reduction
By contrast, interlevel reductions generally do not
relate theories (Sarkar 1992). They are driven by
referential identities (Schaffner 1967; Wimsatt
1976) or localizations (Bechtel and Richardson
1993; Sarkar 1998) between entities at the reduced
and reducing levels, and not theoretical similarities.
REDUCTIONISM
These identities or localizations comprise what
were called bridge laws or ‘‘reduction functions’’
in traditional accounts of reduction. Darden and
Maull (1977) envision the construction of a single
theory tying together two domains or levels but do
not require prior theories. Interlevel reductions ex-
plain phenomena (entities, relations, lawlike regu-
larities) at one level through the operations of often
qualitatively different mechanisms at a lower
level—such qualitative differences sometimes lead
to claims of emergence (see Emergence).
Such mechanistic (or ‘‘articulation-of-parts’’)
explanations (Kauffman 1972) are paradigmatical-
ly reductionist in biology (Wimsatt 1976; Glennan
1996; Sarkar 1998). They are compositional—
upper- and lower-level accounts are supposed to
refer to the same thing. Unlike the similarity rela-
tions of successional reductions, these references
are transitive across levels, though the explanations
may not be. Levels are defined by spatial inclusion
of parts in a whole. For instance, Mendel’s factors
were successively localized through mechanistic
accounts
(a) in chromosomes by the Boveri-Sutton hy-
pothesis (Wimsatt 1976; Darden 1991),
(b) relative to other factors (now genes) in the
chromosomes by linkage mapping (Wimsatt
1992)
(c) to bands in the physical chromosomes by
deletion mapping, and finally
(d) to specific sites in chromosomal DNA.
Identities and localizations are powerful hypoth-
esis generators in the reductionist’s heuristic
toolkit, suggesting new predictions at one level
from properties or relationships at the other, with
ample cues for how to construct explanatory
accounts (Bechtel and Richardson 1993; Wimsatt
1976). In contrast, more traditional ‘‘correspon-
dence theories’’ (Kim 1966) lack these resources
and look ‘‘empirically equivalent’’ to identificatory
theories only in static ad hoc comparisons made
after the fact. (Work in scientific discovery moti-
vates more realistic dynamical rather than merely
static accounts of these processes. They are often
revealingly different.) When genes were tentati-
vely localized to positions on chromosomes, it
spawned a research program dedicated to the eluci-
dation of what different regions of chromosomes
did and consisted of. Subsequent identification of
genetic specificity with DNA sequences led to pro-
jects of sequencing parts of and eventually the en-
tire genomes of organisms (see Molecular Biology).
Localizations are not logically as strong as iden-
tities: If two entities are identical, then any property
699
REDUCTIONISM
of one is a property of the other. But localizations
preserve all relevant spatiotemporal properties of
identities, and thus all of their local mechanisms.
Consequently, contrary to Schaffner (1967), iden-
tities are not required for successful reductions. For
identities or localizations, interlevel reductions are
transitive when compositional claims preserve
boundaries between entities, and functional locali-
zation fallacies (attributing a system property to
what is only a very important part of that system)
often result when they do not. Sarkar (1998)
explicates this point about identities more formally,
showing that claims incorporating localizations may
have the form of conditional statements and yet
allow reductions to be achieved; they need not have
the form of biconditionals, which identities must.
Boundaries between entities sometimes change
for good reasons, and explanations may be intran-
sitive for other reasons (e.g., different interests at
different levels). But transitivity of explanation
(and its central connection to compositional rela-
tions) is still reflected in the modus tollens form:
Failures to explain upper-level phenomena in
lower-level terms are inevitably blamed (by reduc-
tionists) on incomplete or incorrect descriptions
of the relevant system at one level or another,
generating expectable mismatches.
As noted earlier, failed successional reductions
may eliminate objects of an older theory, but fail-
ures of interlevel reduction make upper-level
objects and theory indispensable—there is typically
no other way to organize the phenomena. Interlevel
reductionist explanation—successful or not—is
never eliminative. A mythical philosophical inven-
tion, eliminative reduction, reflects older aims of
ontological economies since abandoned (Wimsatt
1979). There is no evidence for such elimination in
the history of science, and there is no reason—
in terms of scientific functions served—to expect
it in the future. Claims to the contrary (see, e.g.,
Churchland 1986) may arise through conflations of
successional and interlevel reduction. Designers of
optical instruments continue to use geometrical
optics rather than physical optics, though they
may need to make corrections due to diffraction
or exploit the phenomenon of polarization in some
contexts, for instance, to eliminate the effects
of glare (Batterman 2002). Engineers designing
combustion engines use thermodynamics, not the
kinetic theory of matter.
Analyses of reduction presuppose (and should
provide) correlative analyses of levels whose
objects, properties, and relationships are supposed
to be related. These typically show that robust
(multiply detectable) higher-level entities, relations,
700
and regularities (Wimsatt 1981) do not disappear
wholesale in lower-level scientific revolutions. Con-
ceptions of them transmute, add (or occasionally
subtract) dimensions, or turn up in different ways
but do not disappear (Wimsatt 1994). In the case of
interlevel reductions, claims of eliminativism rest
upon exaggerations of unrepresentative cases.
Importantly, reductionist explanatory mecha-
nisms are not themselves—nor directly legitimated
by—exceptionless general laws. Exceptionless gen-
eralizations would be unmanageably complex. Use-
ful, simple, broadly applicable generalizations about
composed systems are richly qualified with ceteris
paribus exceptions explicable in terms of mecha-
nisms operating under an open-textured variety of
applicable conditions (Glennan 1996). Mecha-
nisms are not pragmatically translatable into laws
(Wimsatt 1976; Cartwright 1983) (see also Laws of
Nature; Mechanism).
How successful is interlevel reductionism? His-
torically, as characterized here, it goes back to the
mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth century,
according to which properties of extended bodies
were to be explained by the contact interactions of
their constituent parts (Sarkar 1992). The mechan-
ical philosophy was recognized to have failed as a
universal epistemology for physics by the nine-
teenth century, but the reductionist program
continued to be pursued, though only in a piece-
meal fashion. Its major nineteenth-century achieve-
ment was the kinetic theory of matter (see Kinetic
Theory), in particular, Boltzmann’s mechanical in-
terpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.
Einstein’s kinetic account of Brownian motion in
1905 was another major success (see Sarkar 2000).
While details of these—and other—reductions in
physics continue to be debated, the general philo-
sophical point, that reductions have been successful
in many areas of physics, remains correct.
The major success of interlevel reductionism
since the twentieth-century, as often alluded to
earlier in this article, has been in biology, with the
advent of molecular biology in the 1940s and 1950s
(see Molecular Biology). In chemistry, meanwhile,
the putative reduction of chemistry to physics has
been both defended and challenged (see Chemistry,
Philosophy of). In the social sciences, interlevel
reductionism is usually called methodological indi-
vidualism; it too has been both defended and
challenged (see Methodological Individualism).
Unexpectedly, within physics, interlevel reduc-
tionism has become controversial, with quantum
entanglement often being interpreted as presenting
a challenge to reductionism because it denies any
standard individuation of the parts (see Jaeger and

Sarkar 2003) (see Locality; Quantum Mechanics).
(For more extended discussions of reductionism
in contemporary physics, see Shimony 1987 and
Batterman 2002.)
Multiple Realizability and Supervenience
The concept of a level of organization figures cen-
trally in two concepts that have played a central
role in discussions of reduction and reducibility in
philosophy of psychology, and the lessons one
would draw from case studies in biology or physics
run counter to the antireductionist views common-
ly asserted there. The very stability of higher
levels of organization, relative to the more rapidly
changing dynamics at the lower level, essentially
guarantee multiple realizability. The lower level
characteristically has many more variables and ex-
ponentially more possible states than the more
macro level; so, there will inevitably be many-one
mappings between microstate and macrostate.
But the relative stability of the macrostates gen-
erates something even stronger, which Wimsatt
(1981) calls ‘‘dynamical autonomy,’’ whereby the
vast number of dynamical changes at the micro
level map to the same or to neighboring macro-
states, else macrostate fluctuations would be con-
stantly observed—as they are in fact with
‘‘between-level’’ phenomena like Brownian motion
(Wimsatt 1994; Sarkar 2000). This means that the
most effective way of making a macro change in a
system is virtually always to manipulate the macro
variables. Thus macroscopic causality is safe in a
reductionist world, and multiple realizability is
no argument against reduction, but a very robust
feature of the natural world.
But it is characteristic of any interlevel composi-
tional reductionist explanations that there are
exceptions to the upper-level regularities when
these are mapped in the most natural ways to the
micro level. (Note that there may be more than one
such way.) For instance, fluctuation thermody-
namics essentially concern continuous fluids, with
exceptions having the right statistical character-
istics. These upper-level exceptions may be negligi-
ble, as in statistical mechanics, or much more
common, for instance, in relations between classical
and molecular genetics. Even very reliable mecha-
nisms have a fairly large and distinct number of
ways of breaking down (which grows with increas-
ing complexity and may also be open-ended). This
open-endedness arises naturally in a mechanistic
perspective, since it is easy to conceptualize in a
systematic way how any proposed mechanistic
REDUCTIONISM
intervention would act, but not possible to list sys-
tematically all possible mechanistic interventions.
Claims of supervenience, roughly, hold that there
can be no change at the upper, or macro, levelf
without a change at the lower, or micro, level but
that there is no other systematic relationship be-
tween levels. The intuitions driving supervenience
in interlevel cases are that there are multiply realiz-
able macro-level properties that have no systematic
micro-level account, in part because it is thought
that a micro-level account would be wildly disjunc-
tive and that there would be an open-ended class of
exceptions to any attempt at a lower-level unity (see
Supervenience). The characteristics of mechanisms
described earlier appear to satisfy these conditions,
but without denying reductionist explanations—
and the dynamical autonomy of macro-level vari-
ables gives even more of what is needed to justify
the autonomy of the ‘‘special sciences.’’ It might be
that the search for the apocalyptic completeness
that would eliminate exceptions has motivated the
idea of supervenience (see below), but this is an
artifact of thinking of reductions in terms of laws
rather than in terms of mechanisms—at least in the
compositional sciences.
As used by philosophers of psychology, the for-
mulation of supervenience (whether interpreted on-
tologically or epistemologically) commonly utilizes
the relation between macro states and micro states
as revealed in terms of some future complete apoca-
lyptic physics and psychology (see Psychology, Phi-
losophy of; Supervenience). But this leaves the
discussion in an embarrassing situation: Can it
now even be said that anything is supervenient?
Not having the future sciences, it would appear
that nothing can be said at all.
Interestingly, another concept and approach due
to Levins renders something like supervenience im-
mediately usable and widely applicable. Levins’
(1966) concept of a ‘‘sufficient parameter’’ was
originally elaborated for levels of organization but
applies more broadly:
It is an essential ingredient in the concept of levels of
phenomena that there exists a set of what, by analogy
with the sufficient statistic, we can call sufficient pa-
rameters defined on a given level . . . which are very
much fewer than the number of parameters on the lower
level and which among them contain most of the impor-
tant information about events on that level. (428–429)
He then provides an example of a causally potent
robust property derived and caused in multiple
ways. Levins’ approach avoids dubious, in-principle
arguments and assumptions about future physics
and psychology and substitutes a thoroughly
701
REDUCTIONISM
heuristic methodology tolerant of approximations
and exceptions and better fitting actual scientific
practice (Wimsatt 1994).
Aggregativity and Emergence
Opponents of reductionism usually fear what
Dennett (1995) calls ‘‘greedy reductionism’’: explai-
ning upper-level things in lower-level terms without
intervening mechanisms mediating emergence of
qualitatively different phenomena at higher levels
(as Dennett says, ‘‘without cranes’’). Greedy reduc-
tionism goes with ‘‘nothing but’’ talk, as reflected in
Sperry’s (1976) worries that to reductionists ‘‘even-
tually everything is held to be explainable in terms
of essentially nothing.’’ But this does not happen in
an interlevel reduction. One moves to smaller and
smaller parts in successive reductions, but in each
transition, much of the explanatory weight is borne
by the organization of those parts into a larger
mechanism that explains the behavior of the
higher-level system. (Those parts’ properties explan-
atorily relevant to the behavior of the larger mecha-
nism also provide the basis for judgments of multiple
realizability and functional equivalence—roughly,
any part[s] realizing those properties will do.)
But what if some properties of the parts were also
manifested by the system—and were invariant no
matter how one cuts up or rearranges its parts? For
such properties, organization would not matter.
Such properties are picked out by the most general
conservation laws of physics but apparently not by
any other scientific generalizations. These proper-
ties meet very restrictive conditions: For any decom-
positions of the system into parts, they are invariant
over appropriate rearrangements, substitutions,
and reaggregations, and their values scale appro-
priately under additions or subtractions to the
system. For these aggregative properties, one is pre-
sumably willing to say that the mass of an animal
considered as a subject by an artist for an anatomi-
cal drawing is nothing more than the mass of its
parts. And the blame is on the artist—not vanished
emergent interactions—for any shortfalls in what is
represented in the drawing (Wimsatt 2000).
Essentially all other systemic properties partly
depend upon the organization of parts, are in that
sense emergent, and, according to reductionists, are
mechanistically explainable. Within practical scien-
tific contexts, emergence and reduction are not
usually regarded as opposites; and nonadditive,
organizational, and context-dependent interactions
are the domain of emergence (see Emergence).
Given these differences, it is not appropriate
for interlevel reduction to be tarred with the
702
ontologically corrosive reputation of aggregativity.
Nevertheless, assumptions of aggregativity do play
a role in initiating a reductionist research program;
this may account for the confusion of aggregativity
with reductionism.
Multiple conditions for aggregativity, each re-
quiring invariance of system properties under
different decompositions and operations on the
system’s parts, make aggregativity a degree prop-
erty. In developing explanations, one starts with
simple models. Simpler theories—ignoring higher-
order interactions—typically look more aggregative.
Few properties are aggregative in all respects for all
decompositions, but many are aggregative or ap-
proximately so for some. Such decompositions are
particularly simple and fruitful—more nearly fac-
toring systems into modular parts with monadic,
intrinsic, context-independent properties.
Such decompositions show varying success
for different problems. Decompositions with more
solutions get more attention, and it becomes tempt-
ing to accept ‘‘nothing but’’ statements that are
really context bound and approximate, as if they
were truly general. Bad decompositions for a prob-
lem produce functional localization fallacies, biases,
and conceptual confusions (Bechtel and Richard-
son 1993). Powerful reductionist problem-solving
heuristics can systematically lead to decisions to
ignore or underestimate context dependence (Wim-
satt 1980). This is one bias that epistemologically
successful reductionist research must self-con-
sciously guard against. Analyzing complex systems
often requires simultaneous use of multiple decom-
positions, boundaries, and contexts—treacherous
fields for functional errors: Reductionist heuristics
must be deployed with special care in all such
contexts (Wimsatt 1974 and 1994).
WILLIAM C. WIMSATT
SAHOTRA SARKAR
References
Batterman, R. W. (2002), The Devil in the Details. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Bechtel, W., and R. Richardson (1993), Discovering Com-
plexity: Decomposition and Localization as Scientific Re-
search Strategies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP.
Cartwright, N. (1983), How the Laws of Physics Lie. Lon-
don: Oxford University Press.
Churchland, P. S. (1986), Neurophilosophy. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Darden, L. (1991), Theory Construction in Science: The
Case of Genetics. London: Oxford University Press.
Darden, L., and N. Maull (1977), ‘‘Interfield Theories,’’
Philosophy of Science 44: 43–64.
Dennett, D. (1995), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. New York:
Simon and Schuster.

Glennan, S. (1996), ‘‘Mechanism and the Nature of Causa-
tion,’’ Erkenntnis 44: 49–71.
Hooker, C. (1981), ‘‘Towards a General Theory of Reduc-
tion,’’ Dialogue 20: 38–59, 201–236, 496–529.
Jaeger, G., and S. Sarkar (2003), ‘‘Coherence, Entangle-
ment, and Reductionist Explanation in Quantum Phys-
ics,’’ in A. Ashtekar, R. S. Cohen, D. Howard, J. Renn,
S. Sarkar, and A. Shimony (eds.), Revisiting the Founda-
tions of Relativistic Physics: Festschrift in Honor of John
Stachel. Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer, 423–542.
Kauffman, S. (1972), ‘‘Articulation-of-Parts Explanation in
Biology and the Rational Search for Them,’’ in R. C.
Buck and R. S. Cohen (eds.), PSA-1970: Boston Studies
in Philosophy of Science 8: 257–272.
Kim, Jaegwon (1966), ‘‘On the Psycho-Physical Identity
Thesis,’’ American Philosophical Quarterly 3: 227–235.
Leggett, A. J. (1987), The Problems of Physics. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Levins, R. (1966), ‘‘The Strategy of Model Building in
Population Biology,’’ American Scientist 54: 421–431.
Nagel, E. (1961), The Structure of Science. New York:
Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Nickles, T. (1973), ‘‘Two Concepts of Inter-Theoretic Re-
duction,’’ Journal of Philosophy 70: 181–201.
Ramsey, J. (1995), ‘‘Reduction by Construction,’’ Philoso-
phy of Science 62: 1–20.
Sarkar, S. (1992), ‘‘Models of Reduction and Categories of
Reductionism,’’ Synthese 91: 167–194.
——— (1998), Genetics and Reductionism. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
——— (2000), ‘‘Physical Approximations and Stochastic
Processes in Einstein’s 1905 Paper on Brownian Motion,’’
in D. Howard, and J. Stachel (eds.), Einstein: The Forma-
tive Years, 1879–1909. Boston: Birkhäuser, 203–229.
Schaffner, K. (1967), ‘‘Approaches to Reduction,’’ Philoso-
phy of Science 34: 137–147.
——— (1974), ‘‘The Peripherality of Reductionism in the
Development of Molecular Biology,’’ Journal of the His-
tory of Biology 7: 111–139.
Shimony, A. (1987), ‘‘The Methodology of Synthesis: Parts
and Wholes in Low-Energy Physics,’’ in R. Kargon and
P. Achinstein (eds.), Kelvin’s Baltimore Lectures and
Modern Theoretical Physics. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 399–423.
Sperry, R. (1976), ‘‘Mental Phenomena as Causal Determi-
nants in Brain Function,’’ in G. Globus, G. Maxwell,
HANS REICHENBACH
(26 September 1891–9 April 1953)
Hans Reichenbach was born in Hamburg, Ger-
many, a seaport and open-minded commer-
cial town. He went to the Oberrealschule, where,
REICHENBACH, HANS
and I. Savodnik (eds.), Consciousness and the Brain. New
York: Plenum, 173–198.
von Bekesy, G. (1967), Sensory Inhibition. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Wimsatt, W. C. (1974), ‘‘Complexity and Organization,’’
Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 20: 67–86.
——— (1976), ‘‘Reductive Explanation: A Functional Ac-
count,’’ Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 32:
671–710.
——— (1979), ‘‘Reduction and Reductionism,’’ in P. D.
Asquith and H. Kyburg, Jr. (eds.), Current Research in
Philosophy of Science. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of
Science Association, 352–377.
——— (1980), ‘‘Reductionistic Research Strategies and
Their Biases in the Units of Selection Controversy,’’ in
T. Nickles (ed.), Scientific Discovery, vol. 2: Case Stud-
ies. Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 213–259.
——— (1981), ‘‘Robustness, Reliability and Overdeter-
mination,’’ in M. Brewer and B. Collins (eds.), Scientific
Inquiry and the Social Sciences. San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass, 124–163.
——— (1987), ‘‘False Models as Means to Truer Theories,’’
in M. Nitecki and A. Hoffman (eds.), Neutral Modes in
Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 23–55.
——— (1992), ‘‘Golden Generalities and Co-opted Anoma-
lies: Haldane vs. Muller and the Drosophila Group on
the Theory and Practice of Linkage Mapping,’’ in
S. Sarkar (ed.), Founders of Evolutionary Genetics: A
Centenary Reappraisal. Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer,
107–166.
——— (1994), ‘‘The Ontology of Complex Systems: Levels
of Organization, Perspectives, and Causal Thickets,’’
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 20: 207–274.
——— (2000), ‘‘Emergence as Non-Aggregativity and the
Biases of Reductionisms,’’ Foundations of Science 5:
269–297.
See also Approximation; Biological Information;
Chemistry, Philosophy of; Biology, Philosophy of;
Emergence; Explanation; Locality; Mechanism;
Methodological Individualism; Molecular Biology;
Neurobiology; Psychology, Philosophy of; Quantum
Mechanics; Social Sciences, Philosophy of the;
Supervenience; Unity and Disunity of Science
chiefly, mathematics, natural sciences, and modern
languages were taught. As a result of this school-
ing, in his later life he became more interested
703