My last post explained reductionism—a notion that complex things including human behavior are “really just” simpler things. This post explains 3 types of reductionism (metaphysical, temporal, and behavioral) and how they lead to determinism.
Metaphysical reductionism explains human behavior by attributing it to general universal realities such as laws and principles. Such explanations reduce human beings to special cases of something more general. Metaphysical reductionism makes it difficult to retain uniqueness and individuality. It logically implies that a person is not really a “person”, but simply a bundle of particular variables operating within a lawful system or structure. For example, a women from her own perspective may understand herself to be participating in her marriage and family out of a sense of love and devotion giving her identity and meaning, In a reductive feminist analysis, on the other hand, the women is understood to be trapped in an inherently inequitable system, exploited and victimized by a powerful structure of gender relations.
Metaphysical reductionism is incompatible with meaning and individualism. If people are “really just” the products of a metaphysical reality (univeral laws, principles, or structures) then their actions are determined or caused by that reality.
Temporal reduction is a the idea that every action arises from a string of previous actions that occurred earlier in time. Things that happened in the past influence our present behaviors, therefore the past controls our present. Breaking free from the past requires that one intervening in the present by creating new consequences to actions. This building up of a “new past” is the essence of behaviorist conditioning. However, this cannot free a person from the past. It only replaces one past for another. Since we cannot change the past, our past causes our actions.
Biological Reduction, like temporal reduction is a type of metaphysical reduction, it reduces our actions to genetic, chemical, or neural processes. As I said in the previous post, Dr. Pritchett believes that humans are “really just” a collection of chemicals. Biological reductionism is currently very popular in psychology and cognitive science. This explanation implies that our actions are also determined by our biology. The loss of meaning is clear in biological reductionism. A husband feeling love for his wife is simply responding to a the particular biological state that he is in. A person cannot really love just a a clock does not really know time.
Reductionism leads to determinism and undermines free will. It takes away meaning and destroys individualism. As Dr. Pritchett said "Man’s metaphysical pretensions," he said, "are preposterous. A miserable bit of protoplasm, full of ugly little concepts and mean little emotions and it imagines itself important! Really, you know, that is the root of all the troubles in the world."
