Reduction in Philosophy of Mind : A Pluralistic Account

The notion of reduction continues to play a key role in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science. Supporters of reductionism claim that psychological properties or explanations reduce to neural properties or explanations, while anti-reductionists claim that such reductions are not possible. In this book, I apply recent developments in philosophy of science, particularly the mechanistic explanation paradigm and the interventionist theory of causation, to reassess the traditional approaches to reduction in philosophy of mind. I then elaborate and defend a pluralistic framework for philosophy of mind, and show how reductionist ideas can be incorporated into it. This leads to a novel synthesis of pluralism and reductionism that I call pluralistic physicalism.