reductionism
rih-DUK-shuh-niz-um
rɪˈdʌkʃənɪzəmListen
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Dictionary meaning
the philosophical and scientific approach that explains complex phenomena by analysing and describing them in terms of their simpler constituent parts and the interactions among those parts; methodological reductionism holds that higher-level sciences can in principle be reduced to lower-level sciences such as biology to chemistry and chemistry to physics; ontological reductionism claims that complex systems are nothing over and above their components; contrasted with holism and emergentism which hold that wholes have properties not predictable from their parts
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