AS-Ch. 6: Dr. Pritchett and Reductionism

Dr. Simon Pritchett is a guest at Reardon's party. He is a pompous philosopher. Ayn Rand inserts this character to reveal a contrasting philosophy to her own. Dr. Pritchett believes in reductionism, determinism, skepticism, and nihilism. I will create a post on each of these.

Reductionism

Reductionism is the philosophical position or scientific paradigm that holds that the simplest explanations are usually the best. The notion of Ockham's Razor which was popularized in the 1997 movie "Contact" is one example of reductionism. It states that if there are several explanations for an event, the one that makes the fewest unsupported assumptions is the best explanation. At its most basic level, the notion of reductionism is that some complex phenomenon, X, when properly understood will be to shown to really be a simpler phenomenon, Y. Therefore X is really just Y and it follows that the complexity of human behavior is simply the result of mechanical, biological processes. As Dr. Pritchett said, "man is nothing but a collection of chemicals." Therefore life has no more meaning apart from the random mechanical processes of the body.