reductionismn.
/rᵻˈdʌkʃn̩ɪz(ə)m/, /rᵻˈdʌkʃənɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /rəˈdəkʃəˌnɪz(ə)m/, /riˈdəkʃəˌnɪz(ə)m/ The practice of describing or explaining a complex (esp. mental, social, or biological) phenomenon in terms of relatively simple or fundamental concepts, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient description or explanation; belief in or advocacy of such an approach. Cf. reduction n. 16.Often more narrowly defined in specialist (esp. philosophical) contexts, e.g. with reference to the idea that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of entities or substances ( ontological reductionism).As ‘reductive’ explanations entail a degree of simplification, reductionism has often been used depreciatively to refer to theories which are considered to be excessively simplistic, in that they reduce one phenomenon to another that is too basic to constitute an adequate explanation.
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > empiricism > [noun] > reductionism
reductionism1925
reductivism1946
nothing-but1951
1925 W. M. Urban in Philos. Rev. (1926) 35 114 The essence of evolutionism is reductionism. They are the same road seen from two ends. If we say that novelties such as life and mind emerge from that which is totally different, we have found but a polite way of saying that the world does not evolve in any intelligible sense.
1948 A. L. Kroeber Anthropol. (rev. ed.) xv. 576 The whole problem of the double aspect of our phenomena can also be seen as hingeing on how far we wish..to carry or not to carry what might be called intellectual reductionism.
1952 R. M. Hare Lang. Morals 180 Nor am I committing the sin of ‘reductionism’ which, because of its excessive prevalence, has become a fashionable target for philosophical heresy-hunters.
1957 Philos. Q. 7 376 The illusion..that ontological reductionism is forced upon us by logical theory, is directly traceable to the Theory of Descriptions.
1969 Daily Tel. 1 Nov. 7/7 It [sc. the minute dissection of music's anatomical structure] can easily succumb to the kind of ‘reductionism’ which..claims that any organism can be fully explained by a careful analysis of its smallest components.
1990 Rev. Eng. Stud. 41 137 The reductionism that can see only sexual meanings is damaging.
2007 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 6 Dec. 14/2 Biological and pharmaceutical reductionism of the sort exemplified by the serotonin-deficit theory of depression.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1925