Tuesday, October 21, 2008

On reductionism and eliminativism

Eliminativism is a very interesting theoretical stance that falls within the subcategory of reductionism. Reductionism states how a more basic explanation can be used to explain a particular phenomenon and the higher level explanation is thus not required any more. Eliminativism takes a stronger approach and states how basic level explanation eliminates the need for a higher level explanation. This reminds of Kuhn's views on structures of scientific revolution and how newer explanations supercede old ones. Though we know that in reality, old explanations always tend to make a return in one form or another. Can this critique be applied to eliminativism as well? Can it be said that it doesn't matter how much you explain away some empirical phenomenon in terms of how particular brain area is activated, there might be some explanation that only uses psychological entities as a basis for explanation but nonetheless that kind of explanation might be more suitable in a given situation?

Well it's because we are human beings, less abstract ideas will always be more attractive to us. But based upon what Gestalt psychology has taught us, it is possible to see nothing special in low more basic entities interact with one another but when the whole picture is taken into consideration, suddently the process makes sense.

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