Explore Reductionism through 10+ example sentences from English, with an explanation of the meaning and related words like theory or analysis. Ideal for language learners, writers and word enthusiasts.
Reductionism in a sentence
Reductionism meaning
- An approach to studying complex systems or ideas by reducing them to a set of simpler components.
- A philosophical position which holds that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. In a reductionist framework, the phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena are called "epiphenomena".
Using Reductionism
- The main meaning on this page is: An approach to studying complex systems or ideas by reducing them to a set of simpler components. | A philosophical position which holds that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. In a reductionist framework, the phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena are called "epiphenomena".
- Useful related words include: theory, analysis, analytic thinking.
- In the example corpus, reductionism often appears in combinations such as: ontological reductionism, reductionism is, reductionism and.
Context around Reductionism
- Average sentence length in these examples: 21.8 words
- Position in the sentence: 8 start, 7 middle, 5 end
- Sentence types: 20 statements, 0 questions, 0 exclamations
Corpus analysis for Reductionism
- In this selection, "reductionism" usually appears near the start of the sentence. The average example has 21.8 words, and this corpus slice is mostly made up of statements.
- Around the word, ontological, emergentism, atomist, takes, ontological and discussed stand out and add context to how "reductionism" is used.
- Recognizable usage signals include agenda towards reductionism and uniformity and and emergentism reductionism there are. That gives this page its own corpus information beyond isolated example sentences.
- By corpus frequency, "reductionism" sits close to words such as abdelaziz, absolutist and accrual, which helps place it inside the broader word index.
Example types with reductionism
The same corpus examples are grouped by length and sentence type, making it easier to see the contexts in which the word appears:
Reductionism and emergentism Reductionism There are multiple versions of reductionism. (10 words)
Refuse reductionism and essentialism, which is the core of all racisms. (11 words)
Ontological reductionism takes two different forms: token ontological reductionism and type ontological reductionism. (13 words)
In many of his writings, Mayr rejected reductionism in evolutionary biology, arguing that evolutionary pressures act on the whole organism, not on single genes, and that genes can have different effects depending on the other genes present. (37 words)
Nancey Murphy has claimed that there are two species of ontological reductionism: one that denies that wholes are anything more than their parts; and the stronger thesis of atomist reductionism that wholes are not "really real". (36 words)
Critique of reductionism In "Life's irreducible structure" (1968), citation Polanyi argues that the information contained in the DNA molecule is not reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry. (30 words)
Example sentences (20)
Ontological reductionism takes two different forms: token ontological reductionism and type ontological reductionism.
Reductionism and emergentism Reductionism There are multiple versions of reductionism.
Nancey Murphy has claimed that there are two species of ontological reductionism: one that denies that wholes are anything more than their parts; and the stronger thesis of atomist reductionism that wholes are not "really real".
Ontological reductionism Ontological reductionism is the belief that reality is composed of a minimum number of kinds of entities or substances.
Still, to dismiss his successes as farcical and his wealth as ill-gotten, is a bit too indiscriminate a reductionism.
From both sides of the political divide, she has been accused of peddling racial reductionism by branding all white people as supremacist.
So it's true that when liberals make the accusation of class reductionism, they're often falling back on historical distortions and logical fallacies.
However this smacks of a kind of reductionism where science becomes the model for understanding reality.
Refuse reductionism and essentialism, which is the core of all racisms.
As this introduction suggests, there are a variety of forms of reductionism, discussed in more detail in subsections below.
Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 110. During the conference Parsons opposed what he found to be Lawrence S. Kubie's reductionism.
Critique of reductionism In "Life's irreducible structure" (1968), citation Polanyi argues that the information contained in the DNA molecule is not reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry.
For example, what Polkinghorne calls conceptual or epistemological reductionism is the definition provided by Blackburn citation.
He concludes that only an evolutionary analysis of ethics makes sense, though he cautions against some varieties of 'greedy ethical reductionism'.
In a similar way, Dale Jacquette (1994) stated that Occam's razor has been used in attempts to justify eliminativism and reductionism in the philosophy of mind.
In a very simplified and sometimes contested form, such reductionism is said to imply that a system is nothing but the sum of its parts.
In linguistics Linguistic reductionism is the idea that everything can be described or explained in a language with a limited number of core concepts, and combinations of those concepts.
In many of his writings, Mayr rejected reductionism in evolutionary biology, arguing that evolutionary pressures act on the whole organism, not on single genes, and that genes can have different effects depending on the other genes present.
In neither case can it be claimed that there is an underlying agenda towards reductionism and uniformity.
In science, reductionism implies that certain fields of study are based on areas that study smaller spatial scales or organizational units.
Common combinations with reductionism
These word pairs occur most frequently in English texts:
- ontological reductionism 8×
- reductionism is 7×
- reductionism and 6×
- of reductionism 6×
- reductionism in 3×