noun
- plural of reductionism; approaches or practices that explain complex phenomena by reducing them to simpler or more fundamental components
Usage: philosophy; science
Examples
- The professor criticized various reductionisms in psychology that ignore environmental factors.
- Scientific reductionisms have been both praised for their clarity and criticized for their limitations.
- Different reductionisms compete to explain consciousness in terms of brain activity.
- The debate centered on whether these reductionisms adequately capture the complexity of social behavior.
- Many reductionisms in biology focus on genetic explanations for complex traits.
- Philosophers have long argued against crude reductionisms that oversimplify human experience.