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Abstraction and Explanatory Relevance; or, Why Do the Special Sciences Exist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Matthew C. Haug
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Abstract

Nonreductive physicalists have long used multiple realizability to argue for the explanatory “autonomy” of the special sciences. Recently, in the face of the local reduction and disjunctive property responses to multiple realizability, some defenders of nonreductive physicalism have suggested that autonomy can be grounded merely in human cognitive limitations. In this article, I argue that this is mistaken. By distinguishing between two kinds of abstraction I show that the greater explanatory relevance of some special-science predicates (to certain explananda) is both nonanthropocentric and not solely based on considerations of multiple realizability.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 1143 - 1155
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Paul S. Davies for comments on an earlier draft and to the audience at the PSA 2010 meeting for helpful questions and discussion. I am also grateful for financial support provided by a Scholar's Award from the National Science Foundation (grant SES-0957221), a William & Mary Faculty Summer Research grant, and a Faculty International Conference Travel grant from the Reves Center at William & Mary.

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