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Article: Good and bad reductionism: acknowledging the power of culture.(Responses)
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- June 22, 2008
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As someone who has written at length on the need for vertical integration or consilience between the natural sciences and the humanities, I am obviously in agreement with the majority of Carroll's argument. I particularly think it is important to recognize, as Carroll notes, that any work in academia worth its salt is "reductive" in some respect--that is, seeks to explain a particular phenomenon in terms of more basic, general principles. The common tendency in the humanities to use "reductionistic" as a peremptory term of dismissal is therefore entirely unjustified. I do think, however, that it is important to distinguish between "good" and "bad" forms of reductionism, ...