reductionism

If successful scientific inquiry is to be possible, there must be a world that is independent of how we believe it to be, and in which there are kinds and laws; and we must have the sensory apparatus to perceive particular things and events, and the capacity to represent them, to form generalized explanatory conjectures, and check how these conjectures stand up to further experience. Whether these preconditions are met is not a question the sciences can answer; it is specifically philosophical. This is why the myriad forms of scientistic philosophy in vogue today (neurophilosophy, experimental philosophy, naturalized metaphysics, evangelical-atheist reductionism, etc), are all hollow at the core. Does this mean we must return to the old, a priori analytic model? No! What is needed instead is scientific philosophy in the sense Peirce articulated more than a century ago: philosophy motivated by a genuine desire to discover the truth, and relying not solely on reason but also on experience—only not the special, recherché experience required by the sciences, but close attention to aspects of everyday experience so familiar we hardly notice them.

Two distinct teleological perspectives emerge from the ancient Greek tradition. 1) Platonic teleology, which represents teleology as the result of intentional agency and is the origin of the idea of design; and 2) Aristotelian teleology, which introduces teleology as the resultof natural and intrinsic causes. The preceding framework for understanding nature was superseded by the advent of the modern era and the establishment of the scientific method. Nevertheless, despite the prevailing skepticism regarding the possibility and utility of teleology in the modern era, it is asserted that several prominent scientists of the modern era are staunch defenders of teleology (design). However, with Darwin’s proposal of the theory of evolution, the path to the destruction of teleology was initiated. This article examines the interconnection between Darwin’s theory of evolution (then Neo-Darwinism) and teleology, focusing on how this theory effectively undermines the teleological perspective. However, it seems that recent findings in the field of biology challenge this dominant view and open the way for the revival of teleology.

The mind-body problem is one of the most fundamental and complex issues in the philosophy of mind, addressing the relationship between mental states and brain processes. John Searle, the contemporary American philosopher, has attempted to offer a distinctive response to this problem through a theory known as biological naturalism. In his view, mental phenomena such as consciousness are not only the result of biological processes in the brain, but also constitute higher-level features of those processes. By distinguishing between causal reductionism and the ontological irreducibility of consciousness, Searle seeks to establish a middle path between reductive physicalism and dualism. Key concepts in his view—including intentionality, mental causation, and emergent properties—play a central role in explaining the workings of the human mind. Nevertheless, his theory has faced significant criticism from philosophers such as Dennett, Nagel, and Chalmers, some of whom consider Searle’s biological naturalism to be a new form of property dualism. This paper analyzes the theoretical foundations and structure of biological naturalism, aiming to assess its explanatory power in addressing the mind-body problem and to clarify its relation to competing philosophical approaches.