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Reforming Reduction

A reforming reduction is a reduction of a phenomena that revises much of what was previously believed about that phenomena, but conserves at least some aspects of the old explanation as being true in at least some sense. A reforming reduction, therefore, does not completely invalidate the old theory, but shows it to have been significantly misconceived in some parts, or to be more limited in scope than was previously believed.

An example of a reforming reduction is the discovery that weight is not a fundamental property of objects as was once believed, but rather an indirect product of the gravitational force exerted by two massive bodies, and that it can therefore vary based on proximity to the Earth, or in proximity to bodies with masses different from the Earth's. It would be a mistake to say that the concept of weight was completely invalidated or that weight doesn't exist at all. However, a significant part of what was previously believed about weight was shown to be fundamentally wrong, and its scope was limited.

References

Paul and Patricia Churchland, "Intertheoretic Reduction: A Neuroscientist's Field Guide" in On the Contrary: Critical Essays, 1987-1997 (MIT Press, 1998)

Angus Menuge, Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)

Web Resources On Reforming Reduction

Reductionism: Concepts in Complex Systems
Reductionism: Wikipedia entry

Book Resources On Reforming Reduction

Reductionism: Analysis and the Fullness of Reality by Richard H. Jones
Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems by Francisco Ayala
The Limits of Reductionism in Biology by Bock, et. al.

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