Nonreductionists

Nonreductionists are philosophers and scientists who maintain that certain phenomena or explanations cannot be fully reduced to the microlevel description of more fundamental components. They argue that higher-level properties (such as mental states, biological organization, or social institutions) possess characteristics—laws, causal powers, and explanatory relevance—that are not captured by lower-level theories alone.

Versions of nonreductionism include emergentism, which holds that novelty arises at higher levels; and nonreductive physicalism in the philosophy of mind, which accepts that mental states are dependent on physical substrates but not reducible to them.

Some nonreductionists accept that higher-level theories can be dependable and autonomous, while still acknowledging dependence on lower-level physics. Others emphasize multiple realizability—different physical realizations can yield the same higher-level properties—undermining simple reduction to a single microphysical description.

Critics argue that many purported irreducibilities can be handled by sufficiently detailed microfoundations, or that apparent upward or downward dependencies can be reconciled within a unified framework. Debates also focus on downward causation and the causal exclusion problem.

Nonreductionism has applications in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, biology, and social sciences, where researchers defend the usefulness or necessity of higher-level explanations, laws, or mechanisms.