Sydney-Tilburg conference on

Reduction and the Special Sciences
10 - 12 April 2008

Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Science presents us with a variety of accounts of the world. While some of these accounts posit a deeper theoretical structure and fundamental entities, others do not. But which of these accounts is the right one? How should science conceptualize the world? And what is the relation between the various accounts? Opinions on these issues diverge wildly in philosophy of science. At one extreme are reductionists who argue that higher-level theories should, in principle, be incorporated in or eliminated by the basic level theory. Higher-level theories do not ultimately exhibit conceptual integrity or provide genuine explanations. At the other extreme are pluralists who take higher levels of description and explanation seriously and argue for their independence and indispensability. Our goal in this conference is to bring together representatives from as many viewpoints as possible in order to advance our understanding of this problem. We invite case studies from the natural, social and behavioural sciences as well as discussions of philosophical models of intertheoretic relations.