ABSTRACT
Reductionism is one of the most divisive concepts in the popular and philosophical lexicon. Over the past century it has been championed, declared dead, resurrected, and reformed many times over. Its protean character reflects the circumstances of its birth in the polarizing mid-twentieth-century debates over the unity of science. While the totalizing ideal of unified science has lost its luster, localized reductionist projects continue to flourish. In this chapter I sketch the goals and methods of one prominent form of reductionism within the mind-brain sciences and consider the prospects for non-reductionist alternatives.
