Reduction in Philosophy of Mind: A Pluralistic Account

by Markus I. Eronen

Overview

The notion of reduction continues to play a key role in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science. Supporters of reductionism claim that psychological properties or explanations reduce to neural properties or explanations, while antireductionists claim that such reductions are not possible. In this book, I apply recent developments in philosophy of science, particularly the mechanistic explanation paradigm and the interventionist theory of causation, to reassess the traditional approaches to reduction in philosophy of mind. I then elaborate and defend a pluralistic framework for philosophy of mind, and show how reductionist ideas can be incorporated into it. This leads to a novel synthesis of pluralism and reductionism that I call pluralistic physicalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783110322910
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	11/15/2011
Series:	Epistemische Studien / Epistemic Studies , #24
Pages:	189
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Markus I. Eronen is postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Philosophy II, Ruhr-University Bochum. His research interests are philosophy of neuroscience, philosophy of cognitive science, models, reduction, and ontology of the special sciences. His publications include “Reductionist Challenges to Explanatory Pluralism: Comment on McCauley” (Philosophical Psychology, 2009) and together with Sven Walter, “Reductionism, Multiple Realizability, and Levels of Reality.” In S. French & J. Saatsi (eds.), he wrote “Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Science” (2011) and “Replacing Functional Reduction with Mechanistic Explanation,” in Philosophia Naturalis, 2011.