page_title: Reductionism
hierarchical_section_title: Reductionism
caption_attribution_description: Imaginary rendering of Vaucanson's digesting duck in Scientific American.
context_page_description: Reductionism is the idea that a system can be totally determined by looking at its parts, and by combining these using rules such as logic. Theories can be reduced to observations, concepts to things, and the laws of nature to the events that cause them.
context_section_description: Reductionism is the idea that a system can be totally determined by looking at its parts, and by combining these using rules such as logic. Theories can be reduced to observations, concepts to things, and the laws of nature to the events that cause them.
caption: Descartes held that non-human animals could be reductively explained as automata — De homine, 1662. This image shows a duck.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3308", "Image ImageLength": "4843", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "4", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 21.1 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2020:05:07 08:50:06", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "386", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "940", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "935"}