philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...

, intertheoretic reduction occurs when a reducing theory makes predictions that perfectly or almost perfectly match the predictions of a reduced theory, while the reducing theory explains or predicts a wider range of phenomena under more general conditions.

Special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The laws ...

, for example, can be reduced to Newtonian mechanics for speeds far less than '' c''. According to Alexander Rosenberg philosophers mostly these days believe that reduction between sciences is possible ''in principle'' but concepts we currently have do not allow reductions even in many cases in which natural sciences are involved, for instance from

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

to chemistry. Often, the extent to which one theory can be said to be reduced to another theory is complicated by the existence of emergent phenomena. Furthermore, there is the issue of by what criteria one judges one theory as more fundamental than another. Often, this notion is ambiguous. For instance, a quintessential example of intertheoretic reduction is often considered to be the reduction of phenomenological thermodynamics to statistical mechanics. However, it has been argued that there are some phenomena (e.g. phase transitions and critical phenomena) that cannot be reductively explicated in terms of the "more fundamental" theory of statistical mechanics. Especially

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

is seen often as a "scientific dead-end" due to its intentional concepts (though psychology does not necessarily have to use intentional concepts). Logical analysis has suggested that intentional concepts are not reducible to non-intentional concepts used by

neurophysiology Neurophysiology is a branch of physiology and neuroscience that studies nervous system function rather than nervous system architecture. This area aids in the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological diseases. Historically, it has been dominated b ...

in which is the discipline "underlying" the psychology.Rosenberg's book, chapter 2

References

Metatheory of science Emergence {{sci-philo-stub