Reduction: Models of cross-scientific relations and their implications for the psychology-neuroscience interface

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the philosophical problem of reduction, in particular the question of whether psychology can be reduced to neuroscience. Scientist argues against antireductionist views that psychology is independent of neuroscience and also against ultra-reductionist views that see psychology as being replaced by neuroscience. The explanatory pluralism and heuristic identity theory provide rich and plausible models of interdisciplinary developments. Exploring reductive possibilities opens new avenues for sharing methodological, theoretical, and evidential resources. Successful reductions generate the productive programs of research at the analytical levels from which the candidate theories hail, squaring the lower-level mechanical details with the upper-level phenomenal patterns and refining common understanding of both in the bargain. The chapter discusses the Nagel's standard model of reduction and the way the machinery of the new-wave model of reduction has transformed one of the standard model's principal problems into a virtue. The chapter reviews the criticisms of the new-wave model, suggesting that its proximity to the logical empiricist model on two fronts renders it insufficiently sensitive to the wide range of cross-scientific relations that arise.