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Reductive Explanation in the Biological Sciences

  • Book
  • © 2015

Overview

Authors:
  1. Marie I. Kaiser

    1. Philosophisches Seminar, Universität zu Köln DFG Res Group Causation & Explanati, Köln, Germany

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  • Novel and unique analysis of concepts that are essential to many philosophical debates (such as the concept of reductive explanation, reductionism, and level)
  • Argues that reductive explanations in life science possess three features including displaying a lower-level character, and a simplification of the system’s environment
  • Scrutinizes the question on how entangled the issue of reduction becomes with the issue of explanation

Part of the book series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences (HPTL)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction

    • Marie I. Kaiser
    Pages 1-4

  3. Meta-philosophical Preliminaries

    • Marie I. Kaiser
    Pages 5-41

  4. Drawing Lessons from the Previous Debate

    • Marie I. Kaiser
    Pages 43-94

  5. Two Perspectives on Explanatory Reduction

    • Marie I. Kaiser
    Pages 95-133

  6. A Closer Look at Biological Explanations

    • Marie I. Kaiser
    Pages 135-171

  7. The Ontic Account of Explanatory Reduction

    • Marie I. Kaiser
    Pages 173-246

  8. Conclusion

    • Marie I. Kaiser
    Pages 247-257

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 259-277
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Keywords

About this book

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.

Reviews

“Reductive Explanation in the Biological Sciences offers a novel philosophical perspective on explanatory reduction by fruitfully distinguishing different important characteristics explanations may have. The account also excels by offering metaphilosophical reflections on normativity in philosophy of science.” (Ingo Brigandt, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, ndpr.nd.edu, August, 2016)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Philosophisches Seminar, Universität zu Köln DFG Res Group Causation & Explanati, Köln, Germany

    Marie I. Kaiser

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Reductive Explanation in the Biological Sciences

  • Authors: Marie I. Kaiser

  • Series Title: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25310-7

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-25308-4Published: 23 December 2015

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-79766-3Published: 21 March 2019

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-25310-7Published: 16 December 2015

  • Series ISSN: 2211-1948

  • Series E-ISSN: 2211-1956

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 277

  • Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations, 11 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Philosophy of Science

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