Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences

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word 'norm' can be thought to express something generally accepted; or it may be understood in the sense of a selfaddressed unconditional duty. One may compare this to G. H. von Wright's distinction between the descriptive "discourse for speaking about norms" and the prescriptive "discourse for enunciating rules of action and other norms" ((1968), p. 11). There is also a second, related difficulty that is concerned with attempts to defend one's behaviour by appealing to what is generally done, or generally accepted. That such a procedure is quite common, is a fact of moral psychology. But is it justifiable – and if not, why not? This question can be clarified in the light of David Hume's short remark in his work Treatise of Human Nature (third volume, first part, first section). He distinguishes between the expressions 'is' and 'ought'. On the basis of this, he makes two claims: (1) because the latter "expresses some new relation or affirmation…it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd", (2) "a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it." (Hume (1992), p. 246). The following conclusions can be drawn from Hume's analysis: If consent is given to claim (1), then reducing 'ought' to 'is' would mean the mistake of conflating norms with facts. If consent is given to claim (2), but the required "deduction" cannot be given, then an 'ought', in case that it is not self-evident, can be justified only by appeal to some other, more basic 'ought', but never by appeal to facts. In the light of this, acceptable norms cannot be derived from accepted norms. Moreover, there are reasons to suppose that acceptable norms form an autonomous area, for which one cannot account by any facts whatsoever. The expression 'ought', or 'should', can be prefixed to the verbs 'be' and 'do'. Then, 'should be' may be understood to be the core of value judgements, and 'should do' the core of judgments expressing a norm. (Cf. the traditional German distinction between Seinsollen and Tunsollen). These judgments are concerned with values and norms as abstract entities (cf. the concept of number, to which values and norms are in this respect analogous). The theory of values is known as axiology, and the theory of norms as deontology. Values as abstract entities are to be distinguished from valuations, the latter being concrete actions or mental dispositions. Correspondingly, norms differ from commands. Values and norms thus understood are nothing mystical but plain common sense: although their explication is difficult, we know quite well how and when to employ them in discourse and how to apply them to action. We then act as moral subjects inside the realm of morality, using normative concepts in the prescriptive sense, whether addressing them to ourselves or to others. We participate to moral discourse; we do not try to explain it or reduce it to facts. We can step out and thereby switch off to descriptive, fact-stating mode of moral discourse. Speaking from this vantage point of accepted values and norms, enables us to account for them by appealing to facts of culture, society, psychology etc. Supervenience and 'Should' — Arto Siitonen Accordingly, it is the factual side of normative utterances, i.e. valuations and commands, that can be accounted for by supervenience. Supervenience does not concern values and norms in the prescriptive sense. Acceptability is not reducible to acceptance. Ludwig Wittgenstein made a related point in proposition 6.41 of his Tractatus: "In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists – and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case." In 6.43 he says: "If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts…". This can be interpreted in the following way: as seen from the perspective of values, the world – the totality of facts – appears in a different way than through neutral, non-committed consideration. 4. Critical remarks It is difficult to put in words the dual dimension of value and norm expressions: firstly, valuations and obligations as accepted, empirical, factual – secondly, values and norms as acceptable, conceptual, normative. Wittgenstein even thought that the latter dimension exceeds the limits of language; cf. Tractatus 6.421, according to which "ethics cannot be put into words", and 6.423: "It is impossible to speak about the will in so far as it is the subject of ethical attributes." Also, maintaining the duality in a consistent way is difficult. This is exemplified by certain occasionally encountered suspicious expressions, such as "value facts". If one wants to refer by it to valuations, one should then rather speak of facts of valuation; if it is intended in the normative sense, it marks a plain confusion. That, for instance, the life of a species in nature is intrinsically good, is not a fact but a value. The fallacy of metabasis eis allo genos can be committed in attribution of properties and in reasoning. As to the latter possibility, Hume speaks of an "imperceptible change" from propositions containing the copula 'is' to those "connected with an ought"; cf. Hume (1992), p. 245 f. Let us put forward some reminders: values are not facts; valuations are facts. Norms are not facts; making normative claims is a fact. There is nothing wrong in the effort of upholding the fact/value distinction, or the factual/normative one. (There is neither anything morally wrong in this, nor anything logically wrong). Maintaining these dichotomies implies that supervenience does not apply to values and norms themselves, but it does comprise moral facts (cf. Sec. 2 above). This is not a loss, because the idea of supervenience means explaining facts through reducing them to other, more basic facts. 323
Literature Chalmers, David J. 1996 The Conscious Mind. In Search of a Fundamental Theory. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crick, Francis 1994 The Astonishing Hypothesis. The Scientific Search for the Soul. London: Simon & Schuster. Hume, David 1992. A Treatise of Human Nature. In: David Hume, Philosophical Works II, ed. T. H: Green, T. H: Grose, Aalen: Scientia Verlag (Second reprint of the new edition London 1886). (Originally 1739-40). 324 Supervenience and 'Should' — Arto Siitonen Molander, Bengt 1982 The Order There Is and the Order We Make. An Investigation into the Concept of Causation. Uppsala: Philosophical Studies published by the Philosophical Society and the Department of Philosophy No. 35. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1961 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung. Translation by D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (The first German edition 1921). von Wright, Georg Henrik 1968 An Essay in Deontic Logic and the General Theory of Action, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company (Acta Philosophica Fennica, Fasc. XXI).
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31 Alexander Hieke Hannes Leitgeb H
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Reduktion und Elimination in Philos
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Distributors Die Österreichische L
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6 Inhalt / Contents Wittgenstein me
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8 Inhalt / Contents The Evolution o
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Formal Mechanisms for Reduction in
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4. Property language and theoretica
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imperatives, or commands in the for
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Referential Practice and the Lure o
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The Augustinian account confuses mo
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hurried to fix it on the page. The
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The Essence (?) of Color, According
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Literature Austin, James 1980 “Wi
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Wittgenstein’s Externalism - Gett
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Informal Reduction E.P. Brandon, Ca
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An Anti-Reductionist Argument Based
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An Anti-Reductionist Argument Based
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Did I Do It? -Yeah, You Did! Wittge
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Literature Did I Do It? -Yeah, You
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tween the two approaches. The task
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On Two Recent Defenses of The Simpl
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On Two Recent Defenses of The Simpl
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Queen Victoria’s Dying Thoughts T
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Diagonalization. The Liar Paradox,
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Proof: Given a function ƒ from con
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that I am sure that it is true that
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experiencing something as a red pen
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There can be Causal without Ontolog
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There can be Causal without Ontolog
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objects. But they also leave unansw
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The Knower Paradox and the Quantifi
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The Knower Paradox and the Quantifi
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lent. It also implies that an inven
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The Scapegoat Theory of Causality M
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We may have evolved a specialized c
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easoning have their source in the l
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Wittgenstein on Frazer and Explanat
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genstein 1993, p. 143). In order to
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an adequate syntactic analysis of o
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Wittgenstein meets ÖGS: Wovon man
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Wittgenstein meets ÖGS: Wovon man
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3. Der Elementarsatz wird als Relat
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Literatur Glock, Hans Johann 2006
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Explaining the Brain: Ruthless Redu
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Occam’s Razor in the Theory of Th
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Literature Campbell, Donald T. 1987
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Die Nichtreduzierbarkeit der klassi
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Literatur Die Nichtreduzierbarkeit
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Let T I be the minimal theory of tr
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Does Bradley’s Regress Support No
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(3) Mutatis mutandis, realism has t
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Zeitliche Ontologie und zeitliche R
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Betrachtung ontologischer Fragen, M
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The decisive consequences of this a
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Benacerraf and Bad Company (An Atta
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offer a solution to the bad company
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Literature Benacerraf, Paul 1965
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"PA" by using "PA* ", at least at t
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Hard Naturalism and its Puzzles Ren
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The Mind-Body-Problem and Score-Kee
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mental properties, for instance, or
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kommt es zu einem gravierenden Miss
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Reduction Revisited: The Ontologica
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4. Conclusion Reduction Revisited:
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All in all, we have seen that reduc
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Physicalism Without the A Priori Pa
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Literature Cartwright, Nancy 1999:
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Wittgensteins Projektionsmethode al
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Schlussbemerkungen Wittgensteins Pr
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intentional states requires functio
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Relating Theories. Models and Struc
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Literature Relating Theories. Model
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e invoked in response to the questi
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Do Brains Think? Christopher Humphr
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4. Conclusion So do brains think or
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How Metaphors Alter the World-Pictu
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The Modal Supervenience of the Conc
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Literature van der Auwera, Johan an
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3. The Determination of Form by Syn
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Zwischen Humes Gesetz und „Sollen
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Zwischen Humes Gesetz und „Sollen
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Assessing Humean Supervenience Amir
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determination thesis; it fails as a
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Aus der obigen Definition folgt, da
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Ding-Ontology of Aristotle vs. Sach
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Ding-Ontology of Aristotle vs. Sach
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How do Moral Principles Figure in M
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“Downward Causation”: Emergent,
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“Downward Causation”: Emergent,
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A with distinguished subset Z of te
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A Metaphysically Moderate Version o
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Literature Balashov, Yuri 2002 ''Wh
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“In der Frage liegt ein Fehler”
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Problems with Psychophysical Identi
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identity theory, or as a predecesso
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of the world. It only matters that
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Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in th
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Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in th
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notion of time and requires that so
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Some Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ty
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Some Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ty
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concrete particulars can be subject
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phenomenal concept of experiencing
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Metaphorische Bedeutung als virtus
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speaker is then attaching a special
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„Vom Weißdorn und vom Propheten
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„Die Einheit hören“ - Einige
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„Die Einheit hören“ - Einige
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S4) the necessity of arithmetic is
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Getting out from Inside: Why the Cl
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Dispensing with Particulars: Unders
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Literature Dispensing with Particul
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Reichenbach’s Concept of Logical
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Defining Ontological Naturalism Mar
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Literature Jackson, Frank 1986. “
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properties are located. This proces
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‘our conceptual scheme’ “is c
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Properties and Reduction between Me
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Does this mean that metaphysics sho
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do not pick out pain in a system by
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The Writing of Nietzsche and Wittge
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his teachings. He coincides with hi
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sense of a proposition without firs
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Naturalistic Ethics: A Logical Posi
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Literature Kant, Immanuel 2006 Crit
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What we now require is a bridge the
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Species, Variability, and Integrati
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could mention the many sorts of iso
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to work this way. Classic examples
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The Key Problems of KC Matteo Pleba
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have embraced the myth of prose: it
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5. Prior’s Problem As Patrick Bla
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Reductionism in Axiology: the Case
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developing of cancer tissue in huma
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(2) One-way Nagelian bridge princip
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Rethinking the Modal Argument again
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Page 276 and 277: that we are to find the features we
Page 278 and 279: Atypical Rational Agency Paul Raymo
Page 280 and 281: Literature Anscombe, G. E. M. 1957
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Page 284 and 285: Two Reductions of ‘rule’ Dana R
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Page 290 and 291: Wittgenstein’s Attitudes Fabien S
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Page 294 and 295: Warum man auf transzendentalphiloso
Page 296 and 297: Making the Mind Higher-Level Elizab
Page 298 and 299: Literature Churchland, P. M. (1995)
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Page 302 and 303: Mental Causation: A Lesson from Act
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Page 308 and 309: Reduction, Sets, and Properties Ben
Page 310 and 311: Literature Egan, Andy (2004): ‘Se
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Page 314 and 315: The Elimination of Meaning in Compu
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Page 322 and 323: Supervenience and ‘Should’ Arto
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Page 332 and 333: A Division in Mind. The Misconceive
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Page 336 and 337: could then deduce (1c) and conclude
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Page 342 and 343: A somewhat Eliminativist Proposal a
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Page 348 and 349: Structure of the Paradoxes, Structu
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Page 352 and 353: that he was working on a translatio
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Page 358 and 359: Let us take the example of the hypo
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unabhängig von denen ihrer Mitglie
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Das ‘schwierige Problem’ des Be
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The Supervenience Argument, Levels,
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The Supervenience Argument, Levels,
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their relations both to the physica
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On the Characterization of Objects
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On the Characterization of Objects
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The Functional Unity of Special Sci
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size, location, temporal characteri
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Transcendental Philosophy and Mind-
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From Topology to Logic. The Neural
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From Topology to Logic. The Neural
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The Calculus of Inductive Construct
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The Four-Color Theorem, Testimony a
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experience. Of course, a detailed a
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Clearly x = y → x = ext y holds,
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Intentional Fundamentalism Petri Yl
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The second dimension to be consider
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The very existence of the special s
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Heil, J. (1999), “Multiple Realiz
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independent of what is the fact, fa
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415
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Publications of the Austrian Ludwig
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