|
Reductionism
Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts. Reductionism tends to focus on the small, predictable details of a system and is often associated with various philosophies like emergence, materialism, and determinism. Definitions ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'' suggests that reductionism is "one of the most used and abused terms in the philosophical lexicon" and suggests a three-part division: # Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts. # Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide an explanation in terms of ever-smaller entities. # Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb an older one, but reduces it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole. Emergence plays a central role in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon of life as studied in biology is an emergent property of chemistry and physics. In philosophy, theories that emphasize emergent properties have been called emergentism. In philosophy Philosophers often understand emergence as a claim about the etiology of a system's properties. An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole. Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950), one of the first modern philosophers to write on emergence, termed this a ''categorial novum'' (new category). Definitions This concept of emergence dates from at least the time of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reductionism (music)
Reductionism is a form of improvised music that developed towards the end of the 20th century, centered in Berlin, London, Tokyo, and Vienna. The key characteristics of the music include microtonality, extended techniques, very soft and quiet dynamics, silence, and unconventional sounds and timbres. Some of the names associated with reductionism are Radu Malfatti, Toshimaru Nakamura, Axel Dörner and Rhodri Davies. The London-based movement has been described as New London Silence. See also * Electroacoustic improvisation * Onkyokei References {{Reflist Experimental music genres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony. The school of skepticism questions the human ability to attain knowledge while fallibilism says that knowledge is never certain. Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from sense experience, whereas rationalists believe that some knowledge does not depend on it. Coherentists argue that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Foundationalists, by contrast, maintain th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 until his retirement in 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are political philosophy, ethics and philosophy of mind. Nagel is known for his critique of material reductionist accounts of the mind, particularly in his essay " What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to liberal moral and political theory in ''The Possibility of Altruism'' (1970) and subsequent writings. He continued the critique of reductionism in '' Mind and Cosmos'' (2012), in which he argues against the neo-Darwinian view of the emergence of consciousness. Life and career Nagel was born on July 4, 1937, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), to German Jewish refugees Carolyn () and Walter Nagel. He arrived in the US in 1939, and was raised in and around New York. He had no religious upbringing, but regard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Polkinghorne
John Charlton Polkinghorne (16 October 1930 – 9 March 2021) was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest. A prominent and leading voice explaining the relationship between science and religion, he was professor of mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest in 1982. He served as the president of Queens' College, Cambridge, from 1988 until 1996. Polkinghorne was the author of five books on physics and twenty-six on the relationship between science and religion; his publications include ''The Quantum World'' (1989), ''Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship'' (2005), '' Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion'' (2007), and '' Questions of Truth'' (2009). ''The Polkinghorne Reader'' (edited by Thomas Jay Oord) provides key excerpts from Polkinghorne's most influential books. He was knighted in 1997 and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jaegwon Kim
Jaegwon Kim (September 12, 1934 – November 27, 2019) was a Korean-American philosopher. At the time of his death, Kim was an emeritus professor of philosophy at Brown University. He also taught at several other leading American universities during his lifetime, including the University of Michigan, Cornell University, the University of Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins University, and Swarthmore College. He is best known for his work on mental causation, the mind-body problem and the metaphysics of supervenience and events. Key themes in his work include: a rejection of Cartesian metaphysics, the limitations of strict Mind-body dichotomy, psychophysical identity, supervenience, and the individuation of events. Kim's work on these and other contemporary Metaphysics, metaphysical and Epistemology, epistemological issues is well represented by the papers collected in ''Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays'' (1993). Biography Kim took two years of college in Seoul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Two Dogmas Of Empiricism
"Two Dogmas of Empiricism" is a canonical essay by analytic philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine published in 1951. According to University of Sydney professor of philosophy Peter Godfrey-Smith, this "paper ssometimes regarded as the most important in all of twentieth-century philosophy". The paper is an attack on two central aspects of the logical positivists' philosophy: the first being the analytic–synthetic distinction between analytic truths and synthetic truths, explained by Quine as truths grounded only in meanings and independent of facts, and truths grounded in facts; the other being reductionism, the theory that each meaningful statement gets its meaning from some logical construction of terms that refer exclusively to immediate experience. "Two Dogmas" has six sections. The first four focus on analyticity, the last two on reductionism. There, Quine turns the focus to the logical positivists' theory of meaning. He also presents his own holistic theory of meaning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digesting Duck
The , or Digesting Duck, was an automaton in the form of a duck, created by Jacques de Vaucanson and unveiled on 30 May 1764 in France. The mechanical duck appeared to have the ability to eat kernels of grain, and to metabolize and defecate them. While the duck did not actually have the ability to do this—the food was collected in one inner container, and the pre-stored feces were "produced" from a second, so that no actual digestion took place—Vaucanson hoped that a truly digesting automaton could one day be designed. Voltaire wrote in 1769 that "Without the voice of le Maure and Vaucanson's duck, you would have nothing to remind you of the glory of France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...." The duck is thought to have been destroyed in a fire at a private ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
