antireductionism
|an-ti-re-duc-tion-ism|
🇺🇸
/ˌæn.ti.rɪˈdʌk.ʃən.ɪzəm/
🇬🇧
/ˌæn.ti.rɪˈdʌk.ʃ(ə)n.ɪz(ə)m/
opposition to reducing wholes to parts
Etymology
'antireductionism' originates from English, formed by the prefix 'anti-' (meaning 'against') combined with 'reductionism' (itself composed of 'reduction' + the suffix '-ism').
'reductionism' comes from 'reduction' (from Latin 'reducere' meaning 'to lead back' or 'bring back') plus the noun-forming suffix '-ism' (from Greek '-ismos' via Latin/French); 'anti-' is from Greek 'anti-' meaning 'against'. These elements were combined in modern English to form 'antireductionism'.
Originally formed to designate opposition to the philosophical doctrine of reductionism; over time it has come to cover both philosophical critiques and methodological stances across various disciplines that emphasize autonomy or emergence of higher-level properties.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a philosophical position or doctrine that opposes reductionism — the view that complex phenomena (e.g., mental states, biological functions) can be fully explained by their simpler, lower-level components — instead maintaining that higher-level properties are irreducible or autonomous.
Antireductionism holds that certain biological and mental properties cannot be fully explained by reference to lower-level physical processes.
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Noun 2
a methodological stance in particular disciplines (e.g., biology, psychology, social sciences) that emphasizes higher-level explanations, context, and emergent phenomena rather than reducing explanations to more basic physical or mechanistic terms.
In cognitive science, antireductionism can lead researchers to study mental processes at the level of cognitive systems rather than only at the neural level.
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Last updated: 2025/11/19 03:23