Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences

Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in the Light of Biophysical
Micro-Reduction of Mind & Body
Theo A. F. Kuipers, Groningen, The Netherlands
Introduction
There are at least four anti-reductionist dogmas: 1) reduction
implies elimination, 2) multiple realizability is an obstacle
to concept and theory reduction, 3) supervenience
implies non-reducibility, and 4) mind-body micro-reduction
amounts to neuroreduction, neglecting the embodied and
embedded character of mental life.
In (Kuipers, Structures in Science (henceforth SiS),
2001, Ch. 1), I have described several goals and types of
co-operation between research programs. The programs
can deal with different levels of aggregation and can even
belong to different disciplines. Moreover, the programs can
use different styles of description and explanation: causal,
functional or intentional. In the present paper, these
themes are discussed in the context of mind-body
research. I will focus on interlevel biophysical mind-body
research, and indicate several kinds of (micro-)reduction
and (micro-)correlation of concepts and laws. At the end it
will turn out that none of the four dogmas is observed by
biophysical micro-reduction of mind&body.
Global characterization
Let us concentrate on interlevel mind-body research in the
form of symmetric co-operation between research programs
or even disciplines, hence boundary-bridging interlevel
research. More specifically, I will deal with (macromicro)
interlevel reduction and correlation of mind-body
concepts and with interlevel explanation and reduction of
mind-body laws. The guiding perspective is the material
(more specifically, biophysical) realization of such concepts
and laws in micro-states, -events and -processes.
The latter not necessarily restricted to the individual, let
alone, to its neural states and processes.
In what amounts to an interdisciplinary dream, I will
apply the mixed strategy of moderate reductionism or
moderate holism to the non-eliminative reduction that
might result from the co-operation between psychology
and (neuro) physiology. Justin Schwartz (1991) noted
already long ago that the anti-reductionist arguments of
many philosophers of psychology are motivated by the
worry that successful reduction would eliminate rather than
conserve the mental realm. However, as he points out in
his specific terms, but in the same spirit as ours, some
paradigm natural science examples of (micro-)reduction of
concepts, such as water, genes and tables, are not at all
eliminative. Indeed, “Philosophy of psychology needs more
detailed attention to issues in natural science which serve
as analogies for reduction of the mental” (Schwartz, 1991,
p. 203). I am afraid this still holds to this day.
Another general point is that philosophers seem to
favor discussions involving the reduction of whole
disciplines. From my point of view in general, and the
mixed strategy in particular, such discussions are rather
pretentious. The really interesting question is whether at
least some mental concepts and even some mental laws
(or, more cautiously, regularities or quasi-laws) can be
reduced, straightforwardly or approximately, to biophysical
micro-concepts and -laws.
To state the (micro-)reductionist ambition more
precisely, let us start from the common sense division of
properties (events, states, dispositions, etc.) of human
individuals into bodily and mental properties. That is, some
individual properties are purely or largely bodily, e.g.,
weight, temperature, strength etc. Some others are
typically mental, e.g., having memories, beliefs and
desires. And there are many mixed properties and the like
in between: pains, actions, including speech acts, etc. In
common sense terms all these properties are causally
active (or at least causally reactive) and not only within
their own sphere (mind/mind and body/body interactions)
but also between the spheres (mind/body interactions).
Many of these properties can be described in functional
and several of them in intentional terms, and these ways of
description may well go together.
To describe and explain these common sense
ideas, classical mind-body dualism postulated two kinds of
substances, which can also interact. The modern,
prevailing biophysical point of view is quite different. On
lower levels of aggregation or organization everything is
supposed to be of a biophysical (and partly functional)
nature, such that all individual properties supervene as
mental and/or bodily macro-properties of the individual
conceived as an (organized) aggregate of a biophysical
nature. In other words, the macro-properties are supposed
to be (materially) realized by biophysical micro-states.
Hence, and this is the core idea of my approach, mental,
bodily and mixed terms can be treated in the same way,
and that way is such that their being causally interactive is
unproblematic.
It is important to note that actual biophysical (micro-
)states of human beings have (distributed) traces of earlier
states and inputs of one kind or another. This fact is not
only relevant for many bodily properties, e.g., specific
muscular features of sportsmen, but also for many mental
properties, e.g., what one believes and, very important,
how that is realized. More specifically, it is plausible to
assume that the specific learning history of an individual
has left its biophysical traces in such a way that the
biophysical realization of the same belief may be different
between different people. Moreover, the precise
biophysical realization of (psychologically) the same belief
of one and the same individual may change in time, with
the consequence, for instance, that the strength of the
belief changes. The reason is that long-term learning is
nowadays conceived not only as a matter of electrical and
chemical processes, within and between neurons, but also
as a matter of morphological changes of the neurons
(Kandel et al., 2000; Kandel, 2006).
The (biophysical micro-)reduction ambition can now
be stated more clearly. I distinguish B(ody)-properties/concepts/-terms,
such as weight, M(ental)-properties, such
as having a certain belief, and MB-properties, such as
sexual arousal, without supposing that the division is
always clear. The potential ambiguity will turn out to be of
no importance. I will talk about B-laws (-regularities/quasilaws)
and M-laws, depending on whether they relate only
B-properties or only M-properties, respectively. However, it
remains a matter of dispute whether (pure) M-laws exist at
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