Reductionism - Benefits of Reduction

Benefits of Reduction

An ontological reduction reduces the number of ontological primitives that exist within an ontology. This simplifies philosophy, because every ontological primitive demands a special explanation for its existence. If one maintains that life is not a physical property, for example, then one must give a separate explanation of why some objects possess it and why others do not; this sort of process can prove to be quite complex. Additionally, one would have to prove that a primitive is actually worthy of this status, and not better defined as a variant of something else which is more basic. For example, it would be hard to defend a planet as a primitive, and it would probably be better to treat it as any other massive nonliving body, which is an example of reductionism.

On the other hand, excessive reduction can lead to oversimplification. For example, there is a clear distinction between animal life and plant life, as animals have powers that plants lack, such as sensation, active locomotion, and arguably emotion. Reducing these both to the same thing could then confuse thought involving either animals or plants. Reductionism can erase important distinctions, especially in more abstract fields of philosophy such as morality or theology. Now, not all distinctions are important. Treating white and black people as the same would usually be valid, outside of medicine, history, or cultural studies, for example. This is because, outside of such fields, it is easy to argue that there is no intrinsic difference between the two, though obviously there are possible extrinsic differences, such as traditions and culture. In cases such as this, where the difference between two things is not relevant to the topic at hand, they may be treated as the same kind of thing.