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non-reductionism
Also known as: Non-Reductionism, non-reductionist, non-reductionism, anti-reductionism, Non-reductionism, non-reductionists, Anti-Reductionist, nonreductionism
Facts (50)
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Epistemological Problems of Testimony plato.stanford.edu Apr 1, 2021 16 facts
claimSanford C. Goldberg and David Henderson argued in 2006 that anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony requires a monitoring mechanism.
claimA qualified hybrid view of testimonial justification posits that adults must possess non-testimonially based positive reasons to trust a speaker, whereas children in the developmental phase are justified in believing testimony unless they possess specific reasons not to.
claimSome epistemologists propose hybrid views of testimonial justification to capture the strengths of both Reductionism and Non-Reductionism while avoiding the objections associated with each.
claimNon-Reductionists argue that individuals do not need positive reasons to believe a speaker's testimony is reliable in order to be justified in believing that testimony.
claimOpponents of hybrid views of testimonial justification, including Insole (2000), Weiner (2003), and Lackey (2008), argue that these accounts either suffer from the same objections as standard Reductionism and Non-Reductionism or introduce new problems.
claimJennifer Lackey proposes an alternative to reductionism and non-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony in a 2006 chapter.
claimRobert Audi (1997, 1998, 2004, 2006) defends Non-Reductionism regarding testimonial knowledge but does not defend it regarding testimonial justification.
claimPhilosophers debating testimonial justification generally endorse one of three positions: Reductionism, Non-Reductionism, or Hybrid Views.
claimNon-Reductionists argue that humans are naturally endowed with dispositions to tell the truth, believe what they are told, and detect when a speaker is untrustworthy.
claimOpponents of Non-Reductionism argue that the theory is false because it rejects the requirement for positive reasons to trust testimony, thereby permitting hearers to be irrationally gullible.
perspectiveA primary motivation for Non-Reductionism is to avoid the difficulty of acquiring testimonial knowledge that arises if hearers are required to have positive reasons for believing a speaker's testimony is reliable.
claimNon-Reductionism in epistemology traces back to the work of Thomas Reid (1983).
referenceE. Fricker (2002) presents a case involving testimony from an anonymous blogger on an arbitrary website to argue that Non-Reductionism allows for irrational gullibility.
claimNon-Reductionists endorse the 'Presumptive Right,' which states that a hearer is justified in believing a speaker if the hearer does not possess an undefeated defeater indicating the testimony is false or unlikely to be true.
referenceJennifer Lackey (2008) presents a thought experiment involving aliens dropping a notebook containing testimony about tigers eating their friends to argue that Non-Reductionism fails to account for the need for positive reasons in testimonial justification.
claimProponents of the Inheritance View in epistemology often also endorse Anti-Reductionism.
Epistemology of Testimony | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 15 facts
quoteJennifer Lackey (2005) states: “non–reductionists maintain that testimony is just as basic a source of justification (knowledge, warrant, entitlement, and so forth) as sense-perception, memory, inference, and the like”.
claimJennifer Lackey provides lists of testimonial reductionists and non-reductionists in her 2006 work, 'The Nature of Testimony' (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87:177-97).
referenceThe Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy categorizes epistemological views on testimony based on conditions for the testifier (T-side) and the recipient (S-side), identifying four categories: Reductionism (demanding on both sides), Anti-Reductionism (demanding on T-side, less demanding on S-side), and other variations involving thinkers such as Audi, Fricker, Lackey, Burge, Plantinga, Ross, Welbourne, Goldberg, Graham, and Green.
claimThe earliest clear statements of the reductionist and non-reductionist positions in the epistemology of testimony appear in the works of David Hume and Thomas Reid.
referenceElizabeth Fricker published 'Telling and Trusting: Reductionism and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony' in Mind in 1995, which served as a critical notice of C.A.J. Coady's 1992 work.
referenceJennifer Lackey provides lists of adversaries in the literature regarding reductionism versus nonreductionism in her 2006 work.
claimGoldberg (2006) argues that both reductionists and non-reductionists can subscribe to a 'buck-passing principle,' where a recipient of testimony retains an epistemic duty to select a reliable testifier, similar to a client's duty to select a competent lawyer.
referenceSanford Goldberg and David Henderson published 'Monitoring and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony' in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 2005.
quotePeter Graham (2004) states: “The central claim the Anti-Reductionist makes is that the epistemologies of perception, memory, and testimony should all look more or less alike.”
referenceJennifer Lackey published 'It Takes Two to Tango: Beyond Reductionism and Non-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony' in the 2006 collection 'The Epistemology of Testimony'.
perspectiveReductionism views testimony as akin to inference and places a relatively heavy burden on the recipient of testimony, whereas anti-reductionism views testimony as akin to perception or memory and places a relatively light burden on the recipient.
referenceJennifer Lackey (2006a) and Peter Graham (2006) provide literature reviews categorizing adversaries in the testimony debate based on reductionism versus nonreductionism and inferential versus direct views.
referenceElizabeth Fricker published 'Varieties of Anti-Reductionism About Testimony—A Reply to Goldberg and Henderson' in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 2006.
claimThe most prominent debate in the epistemology of testimony is between 'reductionism' and 'non-reductionism,' terms coined by C.A.J. Coady in 1973.
referenceCoady (1973) introduced the terms 'reductionism' and 'anti-reductionism' to describe approaches to the epistemology of testimony.
Social Epistemology – Introduction to Philosophy - Rebus Press press.rebus.community 13 facts
claimThomas Reid, C.A.J. Coady, Matthew Weiner, Peter Graham, and Sanford Goldberg are representative proponents of non-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony.
claimPeter Graham proposes a non-reductionist view where undefeated testimony that a proposition is true provides some reason to believe it, even if that testimony does not constitute sufficient evidence for belief.
perspectiveThe terms "reductionist" and "non-reductionist" are used with significant variation in philosophy, leading the author of the Rebus Press chapter to adopt a simplified formulation of both views.
perspectiveNon-reductionists argue that Miranda Fricker's objection regarding gullibility fails because monitoring for the trustworthiness of testimony does not need to be conscious, but can be unconscious and automatic.
claimNon-reductionists argue that testimonial beliefs are justified without non-testimonial evidence, asserting that they are justified in the same way perceptual beliefs are justified without inference.
claimNon-reductionism regarding testimony is the view that a person S is sometimes justified in believing testimony p even when S lacks testimony-independent evidence that the testimony is reliable.
claimReductionism is considered a simpler theory than non-reductionism if both are equally explanatorily powerful, thereby benefiting from Ockham’s razor.
formulaAccording to non-reductionism, an individual is justified in accepting a speaker's testimony that a proposition (p) is true if and only if the individual receives the testimony that p and the proposition p is undefeated.
perspectiveThe most effective strategy for non-reductionists is to provide an account of testimony as evidence that is both independently plausible and permissive enough to classify testimony as a non-reducible form of evidence.
claimNon-reductionism faces a phenomenalistic problem because, unlike other sources of justification such as perception, introspection, memory, or intuition, testimony does not inherently present itself as true.
perspectiveMiranda Fricker argues that non-reductionism licenses gullibility because it involves a presumptive right to trust testimony without requiring vigilance regarding the trustworthiness of that testimony.
claimReductionism explains the justification for relying on testimony through a familiar form of inductive justification, which provides it a theoretical advantage over non-reductionism.
claimThe primary argument for non-reductionism is that reductionism cannot avoid skepticism, specifically through the Non-Evidentialist Epistemology of Others (NEEO) or the Inductive Challenge to Others (ICO).
Social Epistemology - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu Feb 26, 2001 2 facts
claimCoady argues that denying anti-reductionism leads to skepticism because audiences typically lack the evidence required to confirm the reliability of the speakers they encounter.
claimAnti-reductionism is the view that testimony is a basic source of justification, meaning testimony-based beliefs are justified as long as the audience has no reasons for doubt.
David Chalmers Thinks the Hard Problem Is Really Hard scientificamerican.com Apr 10, 2017 2 facts
perspectiveDavid Chalmers identifies as a non-reductionist who is tolerant of ideas such as the notion that consciousness is everywhere and not reducible to something physical, while still working within the western scientific and analytic tradition.
accountDavid Chalmers's father is a medical researcher and a reductionist, while his mother is a spiritual thinker and a non-reductionist.
Naturalistic Epistemology | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 1 fact
referenceWillard Van Orman Quine claims in his work 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' that his anti-reductionism (confirmation holism) is equivalent to his rejection of analytic truth and a priori knowledge.
Panpsychism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu Jul 18, 2017 1 fact
claimThomas Nagel's argument for panpsychism relies on four premises: Material Composition (living organisms are complex material systems with no immaterial parts), Realism (mental states are genuine properties of living organisms), No Radical Emergence (all properties of a complex organism are intelligibly derived from the properties of its parts), and Non-Reductionism (mental states are not intelligibly derived from physical properties alone).