The Explanatory Role of Irreducible Properties
Abstract: I aim to reconcile two apparently conflicting theses:
- Everything that can be explained, can be explained in purely physical terms, that is, using the machinery of fundamental physics, and
- Some properties that play an explanatory role in the higher level sci- ences are irreducible.
I investigate the contribution that irreducible properties typically make to explanations in the high level sciences, and I show that when they are explanatorily relevant, it is in virtue of their extension alone. They are irreducible because physics cannot capture their nature; this is no obstacle, however, to physics' more or less capturing their extension, which is all that it need do to duplicate their explanatory power.
In the course of the argument, I sketch the outlines of an account of the explanation of physically contingent regularities, such as the regularities found in most branches of biological inquiry.
PDF version: The Explanatory Role of Irreducible Properties.