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Discussion: How Not to Reduce a Functional Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Robert C. Richardson
Robert C. Richardson*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Cincinnati
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Abstract

There is often substantial disparity between philosophical ideals and scientific practice. Philosophical reductionism is motivated by a drive for ontological austerity. The vehicle is conceptual parsimony: the fewer our conceptual primitives, the less are our ontological commitments. A general moral to be drawn from my “Functionalism and Reductionism” (1979) is that scientific reduction does not, and should not be expected to, facilitate conceptual economy; yet reduction it still is, and in the classical mold. Those who press for the irreducibility of a functional psychology have been seduced by an inadequate account of scientific reduction. Patricia Kitcher (1980) is unhappy with my argument because it fails to live up to her philosophical ideals. “The claim that psychology is irreducible to neurophysiology,” she suggests, “rests to a large extent on the fact that, even in principle, neurophysiology is not capable of carrying out the explanatory work of a functional psychology” (1980, p. 140).

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 125 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Patricia Kitcher commented on an abbreviated version of my (1979) at the Eastern Division Meetings of the APA in December of 1978. Some of my comments are derived from that session. All of them benefited from it and from Patricia Kitcher. I am especially thankful for the incisive comments from two reviewers for this journal.

This work was completed under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities; revisions were undertaken with the support of the Taft Committee at the University of Cincinnati. For their support I am also thankful.

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