経験科学における多重実現と多様性探求

Abstract

Anti-reductionists have argued for multiple realization as an obstacle to intertheoretic reduction. On the other hand, many philosophers have treated its original and conceptual arguments not yet to be confirmed, or tried to undermine them by splitting the realized types for local reduction. Here I analyse multiple realization through biological and psychological phenomena and construe them as substantive obstacles to reduction. Their empirical illustration does not support dismissing them as purely conceptual. Moreover, they resist the local reduction, showing that the splitting-strategy falls into token-identity theory but not type-identity theory. My argument goes on with analysis of realizing mechanisms, which also accounts for why biological and psychological sciences explore diverse mechanisms without universal laws.