Reductionism

The holistic approach not only separates the interconnections of the constituents of a system; it also supports the understanding of the system as a whole. Nevertheless, reductionism itself possess some advantages. Reductionism can facilitate in clarifying the system, with regards to quantitative properties; however, it lacks the ability to obtain and understand the necessary qualitative theories. Additionally, reductionism does not afford a philosophical foundation for research and analysis purposes. Therefore, holism holds an advantage when contrasted with reductionism, specifically, owing to the intricacy, complexness, and interconnections within environmental systems. However, reductionistic and holistic approaches although often contrasted with one another are actually interdependent and complementary methods, which may prove beneficial when studying and making sense of complex phenomena. As each provides useful, but limited, information, which, when viewed as a whole, may fill in significant…

were to transplant half of my brain into someone else’s brainless body, and the other half of my brain into a second’s person’s brainless body, which person would I be? Would I be neither of them or would I be just one of them? Assuming that my personal “fission” could support all of my mental life, According to Parfit’s article Personal Identity, personal identity does not matter and that I would be the same person at first but afterwards both people will become different people. Parfit…

dualism is not biblically based, but rather a construction of ancient philosophers like Plato and Descartes (Jeeves and Brown, 2009). In contrast to common understanding, Descartes, the developer of dualism, was a “physicalist.” He believed the body operated similar to animals as a “machine,” but he lacked an explanation for human consciousness. Lacking an explanation, Descartes created the idea of an immaterial soul distinguishing a line between animal and human. Thus, the authors used the…

Derek Parfit uses reductionism to determine a more likely definition of human identity based on facts, rather than simply speculation. The basis of his argument for the impersonal natural of human identity is the simpler components of a human – the brain, body, and experiences. Parfit lays out the criteria posed by Williams for a reductionist view of personal identity: (1) whether a future person is the same as the current person depends on the intrinsic features of the relationship between the…

During the 18th century around the time when bedside medicine shifted to hospital medicine and then consequently laboratory medicine, Nicholas Jewson wrote a paper that addresses the issue of how this shift affected the doctor-patient relationship, that ultimately the patient has disappeared in the equation. The tone of the paper suggested that the disappearance of the sick-man (as a catalyst that began the reductionism in medicine) would lead medicine in the wrong direction, somewhere…

Holism vs. Reductionism The concept of holism has various applications and connotations. The significant assumption underpinning the approach of holism is that the characteristics of a system are understandable only through examining the system as a whole. Holism focuses on the association between various components, their interactions, interdependencies and interconnectedness. The holistic approach considers that the whole of a system is greater than or different from its individual parts. In…

Can a reductionist approach explain the onset of Schizophrenia? Schizophrenia is one of the most challenging mental disorders as it’s caused by a combination of factors rather than one root cause. Reductionism is an approach which attempts to understand the nature of complex phenomena by reducing them into a smaller set of properties (Jones, 2004) and therefore disregarding the complexities of an individual’s brain and experiences. The purpose of this essay is to assess whether a reductionist…

During previous centuries, using Reductionism pattern has been the dominant pattern on sense recognition (seventh sense; p kivi 2008). It was due to the nature of sciences which were in the process of recognizing the notion of sense and human emotion sets. What we need in these sciences is (1) dividing each sense into some fundamental elements, (2) discussing and describing the unique and specific features of each fundamental element in specific science scopes and (3) extracting interactions and…

Thales is the earliest known philosopher who thought about what was around him like modern scientists do today. He questioned why things exist, how things are, and how they changed. He came up with conclusions by ways of thinking rather than testing his hypothesis. What Thales came up with could not be tested or proven due to not having the means and ability to test his ideas in era he lived in. Thales had a way of simplifying what he observed into explanations for why things are, or how…

Amongst other objections Conee is able to conclude that the claim of Non-reductionism would have no grounding to say that metaphysics have an effect on the morality of abortion. Another theory introduced by Parfit that Conee finds problematic is the parallel argument to Non-reductionism which is Reductionism. According to Parfit Reductionist do not believe that in every instance they either or don’t exist. The reductionist argument leaves too much room for other counter arguments and does…