Taking Apart the World

This chapter develops a characterization of the kind of reductive explanation that is the topic of the book. In particular, the book is concerned with substantive causal reductions rather than Nagel-style theory reductions. The characterization of reductive explanation that is developed here is based on Marie Kaiser’s account of explanatory reduction in biology, and, like Kaiser’s account, it highlights the importance of the fact that reductive explanations treat component systems as if they were parts in isolation. That is, in a reductive explanation it is assumed that our knowledge of how an element behaves in isolation can be useful in understanding the role that part plays when it is part of a complex system.