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Nagel’s Analysis of...
Nagel’s Analysis of Reduction : Comments in Defence as Well as Critique
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- Needham, Paul, 1948- (author)
- Stockholms universitet,Filosofiska institutionen
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(creator_code:org_t)
- Elsevier BV, 2010
- 2010
- English.
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In: Studies in history and philosophy of modern physics. - : Elsevier BV. - 1355-2198 .- 1879-2502. ; 41:2, s. 163-170
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Abstract
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- Despite all the criticism showered on Nagel's classic account of reduction, it meets a fundamental desideratum in an analysis of reduction that is difficult to question, namely of providing for a proper identification of the reducing theory. This is not clearly accommodated in radically different accounts. However, the same feature leads me to question Nagel's claim that the reducing theory can be separated from the putative bridge laws, and thus to question his notion of heterogeneous reduction. A further corollary to the requirement that all the necessary conditions be incorporated in an adequate formulation of the putative reducing theory is that the standard example of gas temperature is not reducible to average molecular kinetic energy. As originally conceived, Nagel's conception of reduction takes no account of approximate reasoning and this failure has certainly restricted its applicability, perhaps to the point of making it unrealistic as a model of reduction in science. I suggest approximation can be accommodated by weakening the original requirement of deduction without jeopardizing the fundamental desideratum. Finally, I turn to briefly consider the idea sometimes raised of the ontological reducibility of chemistry.
Subject headings
- HUMANIORA -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Filosofi (hsv//swe)
- HUMANITIES -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Philosophy (hsv//eng)
Keyword
- Nagel; Duhem; Reduction; Approximation; Bridge laws; Temperature; Thermodynamics
- Philosophy subjects
- Filosofiämnen
- Theoretical Philosophy
- teoretisk filosofi
Publication and Content Type
- ref (subject category)
- art (subject category)
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