Mechanism, Reduction, and Emergence in Two Stories of the Human Epistemic Enterprise

Abstract

The traditional way of thinking about science goes back to the corpuscular philosophy with its micro-reductive mechanism and metaphor of reading God's Book of Nature. This "story-1" with its rhetoric of exact truths contrasts with "story-2" which describes science as a continuation of the always imperfect powers of representation given to us by evolution. On story-2 reduction is one among other knowledge fashioning strategies and shares the imperfections of all human knowledge. When we appreciate that human knowledge always admits of refinement, what appear as "emergent properties" no long seems mysterious. © 2010 The Author(s).