Limits of Reductionism
A contrast to the reductionist approach is holism or emergentism. Holism is the idea that things can have properties, (emergent properties), as a whole that are not explainable from the sum of their parts. The principle of holism was concisely summarized by Aristotle in the Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".
The term greedy reductionism, coined by Daniel Dennett, is used to criticize inappropriate use of reductionism. Other authors use different language when describing the same thing.
Read more about this topic: Reductionism
Famous quotes containing the words limits of, limits and/or reductionism:
“Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life’s possibilities.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“And when discipline is concerned, the parent who has to make it to the end of an eighteen-hour day—who works at a job and then takes on a second shift with the kids every night—is much more likely to adopt the survivor’s motto: “If it works, I’ll use it.” From this perspective, dads who are even slightly less involved and emphasize firm limits or character- building might as well be talking a foreign language. They just don’t get it.”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“One good reason for the popularity of “reductionism” among the philosophical outposts of the Western Establishment is that it can be, and is, used as a device for trying to take the wind, so to speak, out of the sails of Marxism.... In essence reductionism is a kind of anti-Marxist caricature of Marxist determinism. It is what anti-Marxists pretend that Marxist determinism is.”
—Claud Cockburn (1904–1981)