Reduced to the Ranks 
The term Reductionism is something of a scare-crow within some disciplines. Just as in McCarthy’s America, if you called someone a communist you implied, to put it mildly, something like : ‘I am not having this conversation with you’, in a similar fashion, to call someone a reductionist might amount to saying : ‘But you can't be serious? Are you really one?’ However, things are more convoluted than this because many people, even if they are not card-carrying members of the Reductionist Party, are at least crypto-reductionists. To some extent, then, there is a lot of confusion over what that elusive R-term refers to.
Broadly speaking, there are two ways of understanding reductionism (though a book I once read identified as many as 12 versions of reductionism). The first one is to think of reductionism (with a small 'r') simply as a methodological tool. In this sense, there is nothing specifically 'scientific' about reductionism. In fact, we are reductionists every day of the week. (To be even more dramatic, I am being a reductionist in the very manner in which I am dividing this post into paragraphs.) What reductionism, in this sense, implies is this : when you have a bigger Whole, break it down into smaller Parts and try to see how these parts interact with one another. For example, when you want to praise your hostess for her excellent cooking, one excellent way of complimenting her is also to ask her how she cooked the dish you liked (or, at least, think you liked). In trying to explain her culinary skills by pointing out the different ingredients one by one, she is being a good reductionist. She will 'break down' the final product into all kinds of bits and pieces (the meat, the vegetables and the spices) and tell you how to add them together. And this really is how much of ‘science’ moves along. You break down bigger compounds to see how they are formed out of smaller elements, heavy molecules into their atomic constituents and atoms into their sub-atomic particles. In other words, it goes 'all the way down'. And much of engineering/technology works this way too : one may think here of the thousands of diagrams of the various minute parts of a bridge that one must first have before the bridge is actually built.
In other words, if by reductionism one means a methodological tool that asks one to break down compounds into their smaller constituents so that one can then study in detail how these interact with one another, we are reductionists almost by default. This we might call reductionism in the weak sense. There is, however, another version of reductionism, and this is Reductionism (with a capital 'R') in the strong sense. This is much more than a methodological orientation; it is, in fact, an ontological claim about what can exist and what cannot. It says that what really exists is nothing but the fundamental constituents of a system. Indeed, the 'central dogma' of Reductionism is the key phrase 'what really exists', and this can be applied to various disciplines. For example, in biology one could argue that cells and proteins do not ultimately exist : what really exists is DNA (or, as we hear it more usually : ‘It is all in your genes’.) In psychology, one can claim that mental events/processes/consciousness (what we normally call the 'mind') is finally an illusion, because what really exists are sets of neuronal excitations. And then, one can have sociological Reductionism too : here one could argue that there is no such 'thing' called Society, it is simply a conglomeration of disconnected finite individuals. Political Reductionism would be what is sometimes called 'liberalism', which goes with a suspicion of State-worship in which the 'State' is set up as a principle over and against individuals and with a strong emphasis on the rights of citizens.
I have already noted that most of us are reductionists in the first sense. What about the second argument? There is a lot to be said in favour of this argument too, because historically speaking human beings have multiplied entities which on closer investigation have turned out to be nothing but ‘mere sound signifying nothing’. So for instance, people once talked about alchemical compounds, phlogiston, ether, memes, and the like, mistaking them to be ‘things’, which on closer inspection turned out either to be non-existent or to be a simple rearrangement of elements they already knew about. But is this true for all patterns of Reductionism in the second sense? This is a complex question which can be answered only by taking up one by one the various Reductionisms that I mentioned above. However, here are a few considerations in this connection.
Broadly speaking, there are two ways of understanding reductionism (though a book I once read identified as many as 12 versions of reductionism). The first one is to think of reductionism (with a small 'r') simply as a methodological tool. In this sense, there is nothing specifically 'scientific' about reductionism. In fact, we are reductionists every day of the week. (To be even more dramatic, I am being a reductionist in the very manner in which I am dividing this post into paragraphs.) What reductionism, in this sense, implies is this : when you have a bigger Whole, break it down into smaller Parts and try to see how these parts interact with one another. For example, when you want to praise your hostess for her excellent cooking, one excellent way of complimenting her is also to ask her how she cooked the dish you liked (or, at least, think you liked). In trying to explain her culinary skills by pointing out the different ingredients one by one, she is being a good reductionist. She will 'break down' the final product into all kinds of bits and pieces (the meat, the vegetables and the spices) and tell you how to add them together. And this really is how much of ‘science’ moves along. You break down bigger compounds to see how they are formed out of smaller elements, heavy molecules into their atomic constituents and atoms into their sub-atomic particles. In other words, it goes 'all the way down'. And much of engineering/technology works this way too : one may think here of the thousands of diagrams of the various minute parts of a bridge that one must first have before the bridge is actually built.
In other words, if by reductionism one means a methodological tool that asks one to break down compounds into their smaller constituents so that one can then study in detail how these interact with one another, we are reductionists almost by default. This we might call reductionism in the weak sense. There is, however, another version of reductionism, and this is Reductionism (with a capital 'R') in the strong sense. This is much more than a methodological orientation; it is, in fact, an ontological claim about what can exist and what cannot. It says that what really exists is nothing but the fundamental constituents of a system. Indeed, the 'central dogma' of Reductionism is the key phrase 'what really exists', and this can be applied to various disciplines. For example, in biology one could argue that cells and proteins do not ultimately exist : what really exists is DNA (or, as we hear it more usually : ‘It is all in your genes’.) In psychology, one can claim that mental events/processes/consciousness (what we normally call the 'mind') is finally an illusion, because what really exists are sets of neuronal excitations. And then, one can have sociological Reductionism too : here one could argue that there is no such 'thing' called Society, it is simply a conglomeration of disconnected finite individuals. Political Reductionism would be what is sometimes called 'liberalism', which goes with a suspicion of State-worship in which the 'State' is set up as a principle over and against individuals and with a strong emphasis on the rights of citizens.
I have already noted that most of us are reductionists in the first sense. What about the second argument? There is a lot to be said in favour of this argument too, because historically speaking human beings have multiplied entities which on closer investigation have turned out to be nothing but ‘mere sound signifying nothing’. So for instance, people once talked about alchemical compounds, phlogiston, ether, memes, and the like, mistaking them to be ‘things’, which on closer inspection turned out either to be non-existent or to be a simple rearrangement of elements they already knew about. But is this true for all patterns of Reductionism in the second sense? This is a complex question which can be answered only by taking up one by one the various Reductionisms that I mentioned above. However, here are a few considerations in this connection.
What about the status of consciousness? If we take Reductionism seriously, it would mean that the human mind is just a series of neuronal blips. If that were to be accepted, it would have serious consequences for our understanding of what it means when we make assertions or how we try to justify our beliefs. Every belief that we may have would then become simply a special type of a blip, and why should we then regard one blip (say the blip that goes as : Legalise abortion!) as being of ‘higher’ value than some other blip (the blip which goes as : Abortion is illegal!)? Moreover, how would we even know that Reductionism is a 'true' theory, or how would we justify that claim? For if consciousness is simply a set of neuronal peaks, how do we distinguish a claim that has sufficient epistemic warrant from one that does not have it? (Can there be such a thing as a 'false' peak?) Unless we can do something of this sort, how can we even know that the claim made by Reductionists can be justified, because the very concept of 'truth' has been hollowed out? In other words, Reductionists must give us some criteria to decide which claims warrant sufficient epistemic confidence and which do not; for otherwise, it would be the old case of the woodcutter who saws off the very branch she is sitting on.
The other problem about most Reductionisms is that they turn out, on closer inspection, to be not as Reductionist as they seem at first sight. For example, Richard Dawkins says that human evolution can be understood on the basis of the replication of our selfish genes which want to be self-preserving in the long run. But the phrase selfish genes is a curious trope. Selfish according to whom? It is we humans who call these genes, rightly or wrongly, 'selfish'. The genes themselves, however, are neither selfish nor altruistic : they are simple pieces of ‘dead’ chemical matter. To call your genes selfish is like calling your proteins 'sympathetic', your hormones 'unreliable' or your cranial nerves 'restless'. These might be good metaphors for poetic expression but they are just that : 'lively' metaphors. The implication of all this is that there are difficulties in making a 'deductive jump' from a genetic basis to an exhaustive explanation of evolution.
The debate, of course, goes on and on over what homo sapiens is. Central socio-biological questions such as whether the early foetus can be called a 'person', whether a human being has the right to extinguish her life, whether animals have 'rights', whether experiments on animals for discovering drugs can be carried out and the like are all centred around the key question of how the human person is to be defined and understood. Is the human person just a bundle of nerves, tissues, cells and DNA or is there an ‘essential’ inviolable core called his/her 'person'? It is not easy to take sides in this debate without first going through the various arguments and counter-arguments from either side. Be that as it may, in many of our fiercest contemporary debates over the ‘human person’, it is often either the acceptance of a strong form of reductionism or its rejection which is found to be the ‘silent factor’ swaying our opinions this way or the other.
The other problem about most Reductionisms is that they turn out, on closer inspection, to be not as Reductionist as they seem at first sight. For example, Richard Dawkins says that human evolution can be understood on the basis of the replication of our selfish genes which want to be self-preserving in the long run. But the phrase selfish genes is a curious trope. Selfish according to whom? It is we humans who call these genes, rightly or wrongly, 'selfish'. The genes themselves, however, are neither selfish nor altruistic : they are simple pieces of ‘dead’ chemical matter. To call your genes selfish is like calling your proteins 'sympathetic', your hormones 'unreliable' or your cranial nerves 'restless'. These might be good metaphors for poetic expression but they are just that : 'lively' metaphors. The implication of all this is that there are difficulties in making a 'deductive jump' from a genetic basis to an exhaustive explanation of evolution.
The debate, of course, goes on and on over what homo sapiens is. Central socio-biological questions such as whether the early foetus can be called a 'person', whether a human being has the right to extinguish her life, whether animals have 'rights', whether experiments on animals for discovering drugs can be carried out and the like are all centred around the key question of how the human person is to be defined and understood. Is the human person just a bundle of nerves, tissues, cells and DNA or is there an ‘essential’ inviolable core called his/her 'person'? It is not easy to take sides in this debate without first going through the various arguments and counter-arguments from either side. Be that as it may, in many of our fiercest contemporary debates over the ‘human person’, it is often either the acceptance of a strong form of reductionism or its rejection which is found to be the ‘silent factor’ swaying our opinions this way or the other.
posted by The Transparent Ironist @ 8:58 am
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