REDUCTIONISM AND CAUSALITY
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2772 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
In his critique of the second and the third precept of DESCARTES “Discourse on the method”, J.L.LE MOIGNE states: “Reductionism implies somehow causality and conversely” (1990a, p.19).
While DESCARTES suggested in his third precept to start “with objects the simplest and easiest to know” and “ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex” (1947, p.175), he did not explain how to do this.
He did not seem to be aware that the application of his second precept destroys these composed objects because their breakdown in simple objects, as he recommends, eliminates their numerous internal relations, keeping only some privileged one.
Moreover, it becomes less and less obvious, for example in physics with the case of the quarks, that “smaller” is also “simpler and easiest to know”.