Greetings Economists, On Jul 1, 2007, at 12:30 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
Dawkins tries to explain the behavior of organisms -- and even entire species -- by reference to the "selfish gene." Economists try to explain macroeconomics by reference to the behavior of a "representative individual," etc.
Doyle; The term reductionist is a drift from the older term about Descartes metaphysics as being mechanistic. Dawkins certainly uses the term hierarchical reductionism, as opposed to what the Wikipedia article says is holism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism but, this is not 'a' philosophy but derivative of Descartes and Enlightenment theory. The article says for example that ... 'It is useful to note in addition that there are no explicit theories that reject token ontological reduction of biological items to chemical items, or that reject token ontological reduction of chemical items to physics items.' Doyle; Which to me is a strong criticism of the term 'Reductionism' as a philosophy. Dawkins may advocate a position called reductionism but that is not what grinds on in Capitalism as philosophy of the system. That for the public it makes not much sense to attach so much weight to a theory that is hardly known out side of people who give Dawkins a few passing readings. I see my own thinking influenced by holism at times, and by networks in technology at times, but are these philosophies? Reductionism appears to be a kind of meta theory in science supposed to give 'reasons' why things work like they do. The counter argument being something like the whole is more than the parts. The people are not going to be educated about mechanical thinking by condemning the obvious basis for engineering success in most cultures. thanks, Doyle Saylor
