본 논문은 다원화 사회의 정치적 갈등이 초래되는 가치관의 차이를 환원론적 방법을 통해 분석한다. 정치적 갈등의 근본 원인은 무엇보다 바람직한 사회에 대한 가치관의 무게추가 개인에 맞추어져 있느냐 아니면 공동체 쪽으로 기우느냐에 따라 첨예한 대립적 이념구도가 형성된다. 우선 개인을 우선적 가치로 삼을 경우 정치, 사회 시스템의 구성은 개체주의 형태로 나타나며 이런 형태는 전형적으로 자유주의 모형이라고 볼 수 있다. 반면 전체 집단이 개인보다 중시되면 이는 집단주의적인 성향을 띠는 공동체주의나 사회주의 형태가 된다. 따라서 본 논문은 이러한 구도를 준거틀로 삼아 정치 이념의 차이와 갈등이라는 거대 (...) 담론에 대해 집합론적 요소로 환원시켜 그 갈등의 심층구조를 드러내고자 한다. 다시 말해 이는 세계나 사회와 같은 거대-현상을 단위 요소로 환원하여 이를 미시적으로 분석하는 것을 뜻한다. 분석 결과 부분과 전체 담론에 대한 환원 방식에 있어 동양과 서양이 차이를 보이고 있으며, 서양철학 내에서도 이념에 따라 차이가 발생하는 것을 보여줄 것이다. 또한 이러한 분석을 통해 가치관의 무게 중심축이 전체에서 개체로 이동하고 있음을 밝히고자 한다. (shrink)

This paper proposes an analysis of statements about universals according to which such statements assert nothing more than that the evidence we’d take to confirm them obtains, where this evidence is understood to consist solely of patterns in the behavior of particulars that cannot be explained by other regularities in the way things behave. On this analysis, to say that a universal exists is simply to say that there is such a pattern in the behavior of certain particulars, (...) and for any predicate F that is presumed to correspond to a universal, to say that a particular is F is simply to say that its behavior exhibits a pattern of this sort. I argue that there is no theoretical work that we want postulations and ascriptions of universals to do that they’d be unfit for if analyzed in this way, and consequently that there is no reason to treat such statements as asserting anything more than what the proposed analysis suggests. (shrink)

Carbon emission has negative externalities, which will cause severe natural and social problems. In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to carbon emission reduction issue both in academic and application fields. This paper aims to explore the impact of punitive carbon tax and incentive carbon emission reduction subsidy on economy and environment through the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework. The results show that both carbon tax and carbon emission reduction subsidy policies can help to reduce carbon emissions (...) and to improve environment quality. In addition, carbon emission reduction subsidy has a positive impact on economy, while carbon tax has the opposite impact. It follows that the incentive carbon emission reduction policy is more conducive to the coordinated development of economy and environment. This research can be a guideline for the government to formulate carbon emission abatement policies from the perspective of coordinated development. (shrink)

Is conceptual analysis required for reductive explanation? If there is no a priori entailment from microphysical truths to phenomenal truths, does reductive explanation of the phenomenal fail? We say yes . Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker say no.

Let propositionalism be the thesis that all mental attitudes are propositional. Anti-propositionalists typically point at apparently non-propositional attitudes, such as fearing a dog and loving a spouse, and play defense against attempts at propositional analysis of such attitudes. Here I explore the anti-propositionalist’s prospects for going on the offensive, trying to show that some apparently propositional attitudes, notably belief and judgment, can be given non-propositional analysis. Although the notion that belief is a non-propositional attitude may seem ludicrous at (...) first, it is admirably defended by Franz Brentano, whose analysis I propose to expound, update, and deepen here. The basic strategy can be thought of as follows. First, although the grammar of belief-that reports clearly suggests a propositional attitude, the grammar of belief-in reports suggests instead an ‘objectual’ attitude. Second, with some ingenuity all belief-that reports can be paraphrased into belief-in reports. Third, given certain general considerations, this paraphraseability recommends the view that the psychological reality of belief states is objectual rather than propositional. Nonetheless, I will argue, there are two very real costs associated with this non-propositional analysis of belie. (shrink)

Why do agent-relative reasons have authority over us, reflective creatures? Reductive accounts base the normativity of agent-relative reasons on agent-neutral considerations like ‘having parents caring especially for their own children serves best the interests of all children’. Such accounts, however, beg the question about the source of normativity of agent-relative ways of reason-giving. In this paper, I argue for a non-reductive account of the reflective necessity of agent-relative concerns. Such an account will reveal an important structural complexity of (...) practical reasoning in general. Christine Korsgaard relates the rational binding force of practical reasons to the various identities or self-conceptions under which we value ourselves. The problem is that it is not clear why such self-conceptions would necessitate us rationally, given the fact that most of our identities are simply given. Perhaps, Harry Frankfurt is right in arguing that we are not only necessitated by reason, but also, and predominantly by what we love. I argue, however, that “the necessities of love” (in Frankfurt’s phrase) are not to be separated from, but should be seen as belonging to the necessities of reason. Our loves, concerns and related identities provide for a specific and important structure to practical reflection. They function on the background of reasoning, having a specific default role: they would lose their character as concerns, if there was a need for them to be cited on the foreground of deliberation or if there was a need to justify them. This does not mean that our deep concerns cannot be scrutinised. They can only be scrutinised in an indirect way, however, which explains their role in grounding the normativity of agent-relative reasons. It appears that this account can provide for a viable interpretation of Korsgaard’s argument about the foundational role of practical identities. (shrink)

A detailed analysis of Quine's paper on ontologicalreduction shows that the proxy-function requirement, in hischaracterization of the concept of ontological reduction,is superfluous for blocking Pythagoreism and inappropriate for a generalblockade of ontological monism.

Russell’s theory of descriptions in “On Denoting” has long been hailed as a paradigm of the sort of analysis that is constitutiue of philosophical understanding. It is not the only model of logical analysis available to us, however. On Frege’s quite different view, analysis provides not a reduction of some problematic notion to other, unproblematic ones -- as Russell’s analysis does -- but instead a deeper, clearer articulation of the very notion with which we began. This (...) difference, I suggest, is grounded in their two very different conceptions of the nature of language / thought; and it grounds in turn two very different conceptions of the nature of philosophical understanding. (shrink)

Poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) present a recipient country’s program of intent for the utilization of World Bank loans and grants to alleviate debt under the bank’s programs of action for poverty reduction in highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs). This article argues that structural transformation is a prerequisite for poverty reduction in Zambia. However, the Zambian PRSP is largely informed by mainstream thinking on poverty and livelihoods. It champions a neoliberal program constructed on the sanctity of the market and seeks (...) to maintain the very structural processes that engender poverty. Because it fails to break, conceptually and methodologically, from past program failures, the PRSP is likely to be just the latest installment in the ever-changing fashionable semantics of the “development community.” The article examines the conceptual and methodological failures of the Zambian PRSP particularly with respect to the measurement of poverty and the concept of participation. (shrink)

This article examines the technique and legality of induced abortion of one or more fetuses in a multiple pregnancy, where the aim is the destruction of some but not all of the fetuses present (selective reduction of pregnancy). It concludes that since the legal status of the procedure in English law is unclear, it may be a criminal offence to perform selective reduction even where there is an ostensible clinical need. Moreover if the procedure is carried out negligently, and any (...) infant damaged as a result is subsequently born alive, he or she may have a civil claim against the practitioner who carried out the procedure. (shrink)

My aim here is threefold: to show that conceptual facts play a more significant role in justifying explanatory reductions than most of the contributors to the current debate realize; to furnish an account of that role, and to trace the consequences of this account for conceivability arguments about the mind.

Some argue that Lewisian realism fails as a reduction of modality because in order to meet some criterion of success the account needs to invoke primitive modality. I defend Lewisian realism against this charge; in the process, I hope to shed some light on the conditions of success for a reduction. In §1 I detail the resources the Lewisian modal realist needs. In §2 I argue against Lycan and Shalkowski’s charge that Lewis needs a modal notion of ‘world’ to ensure (...) that worlds correspond to possibilities. In §3 I respond to Divers and Melia’s objection that Lewis needs to invoke primitive modality to give a complete account of what worlds there are. In §4 I ask what it is for a notion to ‘involve’ modality. I conclude that the question is either in bad standing or at best offers little traction on the debate, and propose a different way of assessing when materials are appropriately included in a reductive base. (shrink)

This paper confronts a certain modern view of the relation between semantics and ontology with that of the late-medieval nominalist philosophers, William Ockham and John Buridan. The modern view in question is characterized in terms of what is called here “the thesis of onto-semantic parallelism,” which states that the primitive (indefinable) categorematic concepts of our semantics mark out the primary entities in reality. The paper argues that, despite some apparently plausible misinterpretations to the contrary, the late-medieval nominalist program of “ontological (...) reduction” was not driven by considerations that try to “read off” ontology from semantic analysis or those that try to identify semantic primitives in their search for ontological primitives. The medieval authors presented a much more flexible, dynamic view of “Aristotelian naturalism,” which challenges both of the unappealing modern alternatives of “conceptual tribalism” and “conceptual imperialism.”. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the claim that the successful reduction of qualitative to physical states requires some sort of intelligible connection between our qualitative and physical concepts, which in turn requires a conceptual analysis of our qualitative concepts in causal-functional terms. While I defend this claim against some of its recent critics, I ultimately dispute it, and propose a different way to get the requisite intelligible connection between qualitative and physical concepts.

Three distinctly different interpretations of Aristotle’s notion of a sullogismos in Prior Analytics can be traced: (1) a valid or invalid premise-conclusion argument (2) a single, logically true conditional proposition and (3) a cogent argumentation or deduction. Remarkably the three interpretations hold similar notions about the logical relationships among the sullogismoi. This is most apparent in their conflating three processes that Aristotle especially distinguishes: completion (A4-6)reduction(A7) and analysis (A45). Interpretive problems result from not sufficiently recognizing Aristotle’s remarkable degree of (...) metalogical sophistication to distinguish logical syntax from semantics and, thus, also from not grasping him to refine the deduction system of his underlying logic. While it is obvious that Aristotle most often uses ‘sullogimos’ to denote a valid argument of a certain kind, we show that at Prior Analytics A4-6, 7, 45 Aristotle specifically treats a sullogismos as an elemental argument pattern having only valid instances and that such a pattern then serves as a rule of deduction in his syllogistic logic. By extracting Aristotle’s understanding of three proof-theoretic processes, this paper provides new insight into what Aristotle thinks reasoning syllogistically is and, moreover, it resolves three problems in the most recent interpretation that takes a sullogismos to be a deduction. (shrink)

By creating an unbounded topological reduction theory for complex Hilbert spaces over Stonean spaces, we can give a category-theoretic duality between Boolean valued analysis and topological reduction theory for complex Hilbert spaces. MSC: 03C90, 03E40, 06E15, 46M99.

To effectively reduce the homework burden and off-campus training burden of students in the compulsory education stage in China, China adopts the double reduction policy to carry out corresponding governance in the field of education. This study aims to explore the public's psychological cognition of the current education system under the implementation of the double reduction policy. The public's opinion data on education concepts under the implementation of the double reduction policy are collected, then the SPSS software and Amos software (...) to quantitatively analyze the public's educational concept data are used, and a corresponding structural model equation to analyze the public's opinion on the implementation of the double reduction policy is established. The psychological concepts of all aspects of education are observed, the public's psychological views on education under the implementation of the double reduction policy are finally obtained, the ideological connotation of popularizing the double reduction policy for the general public is provided, and the balanced development of the domestic education system for the implementation of the double reduction policy is ensured. Two suggestions are made in order to provide a corresponding reference for the public's psychological cognition research on the current education system under the implementation of the double reduction policy. (shrink)

Legal analysis is a task underlying many forms of legal problem solving. In the Anglo-American legal system, legal analysis is based in part on legal precedents, previously decided cases. This paper describes a reduction-graph model of legal precedents that accounts for a key characteristic of legal precedents: a precedent's relevance to subsequent cases is determined by the theory under which the precedent is decided. This paper identifies the implementation requirements for legal analysis using the reduction-graph model of (...) legal precedents and describes GREBE, a program that satisfies these requirements. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated the mechanisms, correlates, and methods of immunization against interrogative suggestibility (IS). IS involves reliance in memory reports on suggestions contained in misleading questions (Yield) and the tendency to change answers under negative feedback about the quality of previous testimony (Shift). All three studies found that the milder version of the tool used in the studies (GSS) resulted in lower Yield and Shift. In analyses considering the memory states of the participants, IS was found to be highest when (...) participants mistakenly attributed the information contained in the suggestive questions to the original material. However, significant percentages of the participants succumbed to suggestions and changed answers even when they were aware of the discrepancy between the original material and the information contained in the questions. The warning against suggestions was found to lower Yield and Shift, and this was especially true when participants were aware of discrepancies between original material and suggestions. Enhancing self-esteem and inducing mindfulness did not reduce IS. The correlations between IS, including IS in individual mindfulness states, with the Big Five personality traits, anxiety, susceptibility to influence, and self-esteem were inconsistent. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Reduction has long been a favourite method of analysis in all areas of philosophy, but in recent years there has been a reaction against it. The contributors to this volume examine the motivations for such anti-reductionist views and assess their coherence and success in a number of fields.

Anxiety is a common unpleasant reaction among patients undergoing surgery. Many non-pharmacological methods such as spiritual strength are effective in preoperative anxiety management. This study aimed to assess the effects of listening to Quran recitation on reducing preoperative anxiety. A systematic review was performed in Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, Arab World Research Source, and other relevant databases to collect the data. Randomized controlled trials about the effects of listening to Quran recitation on preoperative anxiety reduction in elective surgery were (...) selected without any language and date restriction. Interventions with self-reading/self-recitation were excluded. The Cochran’s Q statistic and the I2 index with 50% threshold were used for calculating the heterogeneity and inconsistency index. Subgroup analysis was conducted based on the surgery type. The funnel plot was used to evaluate the possibility of publication bias. Twelve studies were included in the qualitative synthesis and nine studies in the quantitative synthesis. The meta-analysis showed a significant anxiety reduction with listening to Quran recitation. The heterogeneity between the included studies was statistically significant. The pooled effect size of anxiety was d = −8.893 = −10.763 to −7.022). The subgroup analysis showed that listening to Quran recitation reduces anxiety in major and minor surgeries. There was no publication bias in the studies. The findings indicated that listening to Quran recitation can be considered a non-invasive and peaceful intervention to reduce preoperative anxiety in elective surgery. (shrink)

This paper attempts to identify behavioral patterns and compare their average success considering several criteria of bounded rationality. Experimentally observed choice behavior in various decision tasks is used to assess heterogeneity in how individual participants respond to 15 randomly ordered portfolio choices, each of which is experienced twice. Treatments differ in granting probability information and in eliciting aspirations. Since in our setting neither other regarding concerns nor risk attitude matter and probability of the binary chance move is choice irrelevant, categorizing (...) decision types relies on parameter dependence and choice adaptations. We find that most participants reduce systematically sub-optimality when following the identified criteria. (shrink)

Scholars are divided as to whether reduction should be a central strategy for understanding the world. While reductive analysis is the standard mode of explanation in many areas of science and everyday life, many consider reductionism a sign of “intellectual naivete and backwardness.” In this paper I make three points about the proper status of anti-reductionism: First, reduction, is, in fact, a centrally important epistemic strategy. Second, reduction to physics is always possible for all causal properties. Third, there (...) are, nevertheless, reasons we want science to discover properties and explanations other than reductive physical ones. (shrink)

This manuscript describes the institutional and clinical considerations that apply to the question of whether to mandate opioid dose reduction in patients who have received opioids long-term. It describes how a calamitous rise in addiction and overdose involving opioids has both led to a clinical recalibration by healthcare providers, and to strong incentives favoring forcible opioid reduction by policy making agencies. Neither the 2016 Guideline issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor clinical evidence can justify or promote (...) such policies as safe or effective. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Chalmers and Jackson’s defence of the a priori entailment thesis, that is, the claim that microphysical truths a priori entail ordinary non-phenomenal truths such as ‘water covers 60% of the Earth surface’, which they use as a premise for an argument against the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness. Their argument relies on a certain view about the possession conditions of macroscopic concepts such as WATER, known as ascriptivism. In the paper I distinguish (...) two versions of ascriptivism: reductive versus non-reductive ascriptivism. According to reductive ascriptivism, competent users of a concept have the ability to infer truths involving such concept from lower-level truths, whereas according to non-reductive ascriptivism, all that is required in order to be a competent user of a concept is to be able to infer truths involving that concept from other truths, which need not be lower-level truths. I argue, first, that the a priori entailment thesis is committed to reductive ascriptivism, and secondly, that reductive ascriptivism is problematic because it trivializes the notion of a priori knowledge. Therefore, I conclude that Chalmers and Jackson have not presented a convincing case for the claim that microphysical truths entail ordinary non-phenomenal truths a priori, especially when we understand this claim in the sense that is relevant for their argument against the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness. (shrink)

Metaphor is commonly taken to be an elliptical simile. This article offers a rational reconstruction of two types of simile theories of metaphor: reductive and non-reductive. Careful analysis shows the differences between these theories, but in the end, neither does the explanatory work it sets out to do. In assimilating metaphor to simile and simile to literal comparison, the reductive simile theory obscures what is most important to an account of metaphor: an account of what it (...) is to interpret a bit of discourse metaphorically. The reductive simile theory fails because the reduction to literal comparison fails. The non-reductive simile theory faces most of the same problems that undermine the simile theory, particularly problems generating a corresponding simile when the metaphor contains quantificational terms and other linguistic complexities. Analysis of the non-reductive simile theory highlights the troublesome assumption (inherent in all simile theories) that metaphor and simile play the same linguistic role: making or prompting us to make comparisons. In both guises, the simile theory mistakes the task of explaining what a metaphor means with how metaphor (in general) has meaning; it confuses explanation with explication. In diagnosing and arguing against the simile theory, this article sets out a framework for understanding the difference between literal and metaphorical interpretation. (shrink)

Back cover: This book develops a philosophical account that reveals the major characteristics that make an explanation in the life sciences reductive and distinguish them from non-reductive explanations. Understanding what reductive explanations are enables one to assess the conditions under which reductive explanations are adequate and thus enhances debates about explanatory reductionism. The account of reductive explanation presented in this book has three major characteristics. First, it emerges from a critical reconstruction of the explanatory practice (...) of the life sciences itself. Second, the account is monistic since it specifies one set of criteria that apply to explanations in the life sciences in general. Finally, the account is ontic in that it traces the reductivity of an explanation back to certain relations that exist between objects in the world (such as part-whole relations and level relations), rather than to the logical relations between sentences. Beginning with a disclosure of the meta-philosophical assumptions that underlie the author’s analysis of reductive explanation, the book leads into the debate about reduction(ism) in the philosophy of biology and continues with a discussion on the two perspectives on explanatory reduction that have been proposed in the philosophy of biology so far. The author scrutinizes how the issue of reduction becomes entangled with explanation and analyzes two concepts, the concept of a biological part and the concept of a level of organization. The results of these five chapters constitute the ground on which the author bases her final chapter, developing her ontic account of reductive explanation. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of emergence are incompatible with reduction. Most scientists regard a system property as emergent relative to properties of the system's parts if it depends upon their mode of organization--a view consistent with reduction. Emergence can be analyzed as a failure of aggregativity--a state in which "the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts." Aggregativity requires four conditions, giving tools for analyzing modes of organization. Differently met for different decompositions of the system, and in different (...) degrees, these conditions provide powerful evaluation criteria for choosing decompositions, and heuristics for detecting biases of vulgar reductionisms. This analysis of emergence is compatible with reduction. (shrink)

Through careful analysis of phenomenological texts by Husserl and Heidegger, Marion argues for the necessity of a third phenomenological reduction that concerns what is fully implied but left largely unthought by the phenomenologies of both ...

It is a perennial philosophical enterprise to propose the reduction of causal facts to facts of some other kind. Just as it is also a perennial enterprise to proclaim that certain such proposed reductions are doomed to failure. Here I shall champion a certain family of reductionist proposals—namely, those that quantify the notion of causality—referring to them as quantitative reductions. The opposition to quantitative reductionism proclaims that an antireductionist analysis of causation is to be preferred, because such an (...) class='Hi'>analysis of causal matters can code for either more information, or for information of a radically nonquantitative sort also. The charge is that purely quantitative models have no means of handling this surplus. I will undertake to show that it is not so. (shrink)

The reductive strategies, such as the deductive-nomological (DN) model of explanation, or the Nagel–Schaffner reduction, have been perceived negatively ever since their first applications in historical inquiry. However, the role of the analysis of inter-theory relations, such as the preservation of success and retrospective rationality, has hardly ever received much attention from historians of science. In this paper, I am exploring the applicability of the analysis of inter-theory relations for the rational reconstruction of the development of science. (...) I demonstrate that the historiography of Anneliese Maier is a good example of a few reductive strategies at play in historical inquiry that do not submit to the same criticism that the synchronic reductive analysis of theories is submitted to. (shrink)

A conventional wisdom about the progress of physics holds that successive theories wholly encompass the domains of their predecessors through a process that is often called reduction. While certain influential accounts of inter-theory reduction in physics take reduction to require a single "global" derivation of one theory's laws from those of another, I show that global reductions are not available in all cases where the conventional wisdom requires reduction to hold. However, I argue that a weaker "local" form of reduction, (...) which defines reduction between theories in terms of a more fundamental notion of reduction between models of a single fixed system, is available in such cases and moreover suffices to uphold the conventional wisdom. To illustrate the sort of fixed-system, inter-model reduction that grounds inter-theoretic reduction on this picture, I specialize to a particular class of cases in which both models are dynamical systems. I show that reduction in these cases is underwritten by a mathematical relationship that follows the broad prescriptions of Nagel/Schaffner reduction, and support this claim with several examples. Moreover, I show that this broadly Nagelian analysis of inter-model reduction encompasses several cases that are sometimes cited as instances of the "physicist's" limit-based notion of reduction. (shrink)

It can be argued (cf. Dizadji‑Bahmani et al. 2010) that an increase in coherence is one goal that drives reductionist enterprises. Consequently, the question if or how well this goal is achieved can serve as an epistemic criterion for evaluating both a concrete case of a purported reduction and our model of reduction : what conditions on the model allow for an increase in coherence ? In order to answer this question, I provide an analysis of the relation between (...) the reduction and the coherence of two theories. The underlying model of reduction is a (generalised) Nagelian model (cf. Nagel 1970, Schaffner 1974, Dizadji‑Bahmani et al. 2010). For coherence, different measures have been put forward (e.g. Shogenji 1999, Olsson 2002, Fitelson 2003, Bovens & Hartmann 2003). However, since there are counterexamples to each proposed coherence measure, we should be careful that the analysis be sufficiently stable (in a sense to be specified). It will turn out that this can be done. (shrink)

This paper examines the efficacy of a statelessness reduction plan implemented by the country of Chile. We evaluate the programmatic alignment of Chile’s statelessness reduction plan, #Chilereconoce, with policy enacted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in that office’s campaign to eradicate statelessness by the year 2024. In addition to evaluating the structure of Chile’s statelessness reduction plan, we explore the policy outcomes of this plan in achieving its desired goal of reducing statelessness in Chile. We use Chile (...) as a case study because it implemented the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ 2014-2024 Action Plan and, therefore, can shed light on if such a plan can put a nation-state on the path to remedy the deleterious effects of statelessness. Our central argument is that Chile’s statelessness reduction plan can, in-fact, serve as a blueprint for governmental institutions to follow towards achieving the goal of reducing statelessness. The success of such a plan, however, is conditioned upon whether principle actors within governmental institutions confront, head on, structural challenges that otherwise tend to undermine the merging of a confluence of critical factors that must be aligned for success to occur. The Chilean project demonstrates that reducing statelessness requires community action, implementation of domestic legislative reform, and governmental accession to international treaties. (shrink)

In their 2010 paper, Dizadji-Bahmani, Frigg, and Hartmann argue that the generalized version of the Nagel–Schaffner model that they have developed is the right one for intertheoretic reduction, i.e. the kind of reduction that involves theories with largely overlapping domains of application. Drawing on the GNS, DFH presented a Bayesian analysis of the confirmatory relation between the reducing theory and the reduced theory and argued that, post-reduction, evidence confirming the reducing theory also confirms the reduced theory and evidence confirming (...) the reduced theory also confirms the reducing theory, which meets the expectations one has about theories with largely overlapping domains. In this paper, I argue that the Bayesian analysis presented by DFH faces difficulties. In particular, I argue that the conditional probabilities that DFH introduce to model the bridge law entail consequences that run against the GNS. However, I also argue that, given slight modifications of the analysis that are in agreement with the GNS, one is able to account for these difficulties and, moreover, one is able to more rigorously analyse the confirmatory relation between the reducing and the reduced theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose two theses, and then examine what the consequences of those theses are for discussions of reduction and emergence. The first thesis is that what have traditionally been seen as robust, reductions of one theory or one branch of science by another more fundamental one are a largely a myth. Although there are such reductions in the physical sciences, they are quite rare, and depend on special requirements. In the biological sciences, these prima facie sweeping reductions (...) fade away, like the body of the famous Cheshire cat, leaving only a smile.... The second thesis is that the "smiles" are fragmentary patchy explanations, and though patchy and fragmentary, they are very important, potentially Nobel-prize winning advances. To get the best grasp of these "smiles," I want to argue that, we need to return to the roots of discussions and analyses of scientific explanation more generally, and not focus mainly on reduction models, though three conditions based on earlier reduction models are retained in the present analysis. I briefly review the scientific explanation literature as it relates to reduction, and then offer my account of explanation. The account of scientific explanation I present is one I have discussed before, but in this paper I try to simplify it, and characterize it as involving field elements and a preferred causal model system abbreviated as FE and PCMS. In an important sense, this FE and PCMS analysis locates an "explanation" in a typical scientific research article. This FE and PCMS account is illustrated using a recent set of neurogenetic papers on two kinds of worm foraging behaviors: solitary and social feeding. One of the preferred model systems from a 2002 Nature article in this set is used to exemplify the FE and PCMS analysis, which is shown to have both reductive and nonreductive aspects. The paper closes with a brief discussion of how this FE and PCMS approach differs from and is congruent with Bickle's "ruthless reductionism" and the recently revived mechanistic philosophy of science of Machamer, Darden, and Craver. (shrink)