Special sciences: Difference between revisions
I created this article because there are several references to the special sciences in Wikipedia (some inaccurately including physics, in fact), and because a link to it may be needed at Physics |
I created this article because there are several references to the special sciences in Wikipedia (some inaccurately including physics, in fact), and because a link to it may be needed at Physics |
(No difference)
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Revision as of 11:59, 3 November 2006
The special sciences are those sciences other than physics that are sometimes thought to be reducible to physics, or to stand in some similar relation of dependence to physics as the "fundamental" science. The usual list includes chemistry, biology, neuroscience, and many others. The status of the special sciences, and the explication of their precise relationship to physics, is a matter of much controversy in philosophy of science. Some, famously including Jerry Fodor[1], hold that the special sciences are not in fact reducible, but autonomous: they have laws of their own, which could not by deduced from the laws of physics, even in principle. Others, like W.V.O. Quine[2], take this reducibility for granted, and may even see physics as "including" the special sciences, almost as subdivisions.
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