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reductionism

noun

  1. philosophical view explaining systems in terms of smaller parts
L326517 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree English reduction Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English reductionism From reduction + -ism.

  1. An approach to studying complex systems or ideas by reducing them to a set of simpler components.
  2. A philosophical position which holds that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. In a reductionist framework, the phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena are called "epiphenomena".