Reductionism

In Anglo-American Postmodernity, Nancey Murphy lists three characteristics of modern philosophy: foundationalism, referentialism, and reductionism.

Reductionism is "the strategy not only of analyzing a thing into its parts, but also of explaining the properties or behavior of the thing in terms of the properties and behavior of the parts." (p.12) In the sciences, reductionism is demonstrated in the notion that biological processes can be described by reducing them to a set of chemical reactions, which can in turn be reduced to the physics involved. This has created a hierarchy of the sciences, starting with physics (the simplest level), and working up in complexity to fields like sociology.

The crucial metaphysical assumption embodied in this view of the sciences is that the parts of an entity or system determine the character and behavior of the whole and not vice versa. (p.14)

According to Murphy, this way of thinking has not been restricted to the sciences. Ethics, political theory, epistemology, and philosophy of language are other areas that have been affected by reductionistic assumptions.