生物学中的弱解释还原论及其辩护

Defending Weak Explanatory Reductionism in Biology

生物学中的弱解释还原论认为,生物学中的一切系统性质都能够仅仅通过部分性质得到解释。然而,近年来随着生物学中突现现象的大量涌现,弱解释还原论受到了多方怀疑。我们认为,这些怀疑可以被归类为相互关联的四大论证:突现论证、情境论证、多重实现论证和原因论证。其中,前三个论证可以看做最后一个论证的衍生物。本文通过回应以上四个反弱解释还原论论证为弱解释还原论作出了辩护,我们认为目前尚不存在能够完全否定弱解释还原论的证据。

Weak explanatory reductionism in biology holds that all system properties in biology could be explained solely by the properties of parts. However, this thesis has been seriously questioned with the advent of a considerable amount of biological emergent phenomena. We classify extant doubts on weak explanatory reductionism into four inter-related arguments, namely emergence argument, context argument, multi-realization argument and cause argument. Among them, the first three arguments could be seen as ramifications of the last one. In this article, we defend weak reductionism by responding to these four arguments above. Our conclusion is that currently there is no evidence that could firmly deny weak reductionism.