Reductionism

a number of related, contentious theories that hold, very roughly, that the nature of complex things can always be reduced to (be explained by) simpler or more fundamental things. This is said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings. In short, it is philosophical materialism taken to its logical consequences.

• Ontological reductionism - the idea that everything that exists is made from a small number of basic substances that behave in regular ways. Compare to monism.

• Methodological reductionism - the idea that explanations of things, such as scientific explanations, ought to be continually reduced to the very simplest entities possible (but no simpler). Occam's Razor forms the basis of this type of reductionism.

• Theoretical reductionism - the idea that older theories or explanations are not generally replaced outright by new ones, but that new theories are refinements or reductions of the old theory in greater detail.

• Scientific reductionism - has been used to describe all of the above ideas as they relate to science, but is most often used to describe the idea that all phenomena can be reduced to scientific explanations.

• Linguistic reductionism - the idea that everything can be described in a language with a limited number of core concepts, and combinations of those concepts. (See Basic English and the constructed language Toki Pona).

• Greedy reductionism - this term was coined by Daniel Dennett to condemn those forms of reductionism that try to explain too much with too little.

• Analytical reductionism - as used in "Is Reductionism A Good Approach In Science?" "is the underlying a priori of ontological reductionism".

• Relationalism - a philosophy that holds that space and time are basic entities ontologically on a par with matter and radiation.