The Arrogance of Material Reductionism
Why we need many forms of knowing—scientific, religious, mythic, and philosophical—to make sense of the vastness of our experience of life
Scientists study the material world. They observe patterns in material phenomena intending to induce universal laws that govern those patterns. This is a fruitful method for comprehending and systematically explaining how the material world moves and flows, allowing us to build bridges, cell phones, houses, airplanes, and rocket ships. Unfortunately, however, the predictive power of the scientific method in the material realm has led to a new form of dogmatism: what we could call a religion of materialism and scientism. In our current culture, some scientists, many academic philosophers, and a contingency of laypeople assume that this scientific method is the holy grail of knowledge, implying that all other knowledge systems, be they religious, mythic, or philosophical, are misguided, inferior, or downright incorrect. To give some examples: Stephen Hawking, a famous physicist, claimed that “philosophy is dead” because the empirical observations of modern science will unveil the workings of the entire cosmos. In a similar vein, when modern philosopher Jay Garfield wrote a piece calling for philosophy departments in the U.S. to culturally diversify, some philosophers criticized Garfield. These philosophers gestured to the superiority of modern, scientific knowledge by arguing that pre-modern, non-Western ways of knowing do not keep our planes in the sky. (I recommend Garfield’s piece; you can read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/opinion/if-philosophy-wont-diversify-lets-call-it-what-it-really-is.html.)
This scientific dogmatism is a form of reductionism. Reductionism is the attempt to explain one phenomenon or process in terms of another phenomenon or process that is taken to be more fundamental. For example, when Karl Marx said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” he was suggesting we could explain religion in terms of class struggle. He believed that we would understand the reality of religion better once we saw that it was a means for the lower class to tranquilize themselves from the harsh realities of poverty. Scientific dogmatists are material reductionists. A material reductionist thinks we can explain all phenomena better by explaining them in terms of material causes. For example, a material reductionist would think that emotions can be most properly explained by giving an account of the material processes in the brain occurring while we have those emotions.
From my perspective, such a claim is, at best, confused and, at worst, arrogant. A reductionist explanation is proper when it enriches our understanding of the phenomenon being reduced. Scientists' material accounts of systems such as weather patterns, plants growing, the heart pumping blood, or stars exploding do this very well; they enrich our understanding of these systems and allow us to engage with them more knowledgeably. However, it seems like quite a stretch that an account of simultaneously occurring material processes in the brain can enrich and illuminate the experiences of being in love, tasting an apple, feeling the pangs of grief when we lose a loved one, or looking at a beautiful work of art or sunset.
I do not mean to imply that information about what occurs in the brain during these experiences is irrelevant. Of course, such information could provide us with a greater understanding of what is happening in the brain during these experiences. But does it make sense to fully reduce these profound and meaningful subjective and intersubjective experiences to the unconscious behavior of neurons? Would such a reductionist account illuminate the subjective, experiential aspect of these phenomena in any way? Does it help us understand the patterns that govern these experiences and orient ourselves toward those patterns with wisdom? I think not. Here we find the hole in the materialist explanation that religious, mythic, and philosophical systems of knowledge have filled for millennia. Let’s spend some time on an example: the concept of love in the Sufi and Platonic traditions. Sufi scholar and practitioner Sumnun boldly claims, “Nothing can be expressed except by means of something subtler than itself. But there is nothing subtler than love, so how can it be expressed?” Instead of reducing everything to a material explanation, Sumnun reduces everything to love. We could say the Sufis and Plato (at least in The Symposium) are love reductionists.
The Sufi tradition and Plato define love as an orientation toward beauty. Just like a material reductionist tries to account for all phenomena by explaining those phenomena as a product of underlying material processes, the Sufis and Plato explain all human behavior as an expression of love. The reason there is such a vast diversity of motivations is that different people are at different places on what we could call the hierarchy of love. We might begin our journey of love by finding the physical appearance of one individual beautiful and wanting to engage in physical intimacy with them. This is not a “base” desire from the Platonic or Sufi perspective, as it is in some religious traditions. Rather, the appreciation of beauty in a physical body is a true appreciation of the beauty and harmony of the universe as a whole, now appearing as this physical body. However, if we only notice the beauty of the body, we will likely be shocked out of our appreciation if this person tells us they have no interest in engaging in physical intimacy with us. Thus, in the lower stages of beauty, our love is fragile, quickly turning to disappointment. However, let’s say in addition to the beauty of the body, we also notice the beauty of this person’s personality and intellect. Now, even if the person has no interest in a physical relationship, the appreciation of beauty that their presence engenders in us is not thwarted.
In this way, “higher” forms of beauty are more comprehensive, more inclusive, and thus less fragile. The higher forms of beauty for Plato and the Sufis include the laws of a just society, art, and natural beauty. When we are drawn toward these higher forms, the enjoyment we take in the beautiful is more stable as it stems from the underlying harmonious structure of society and nature. At the top of the hierarchy, we find the Divine Source from which the harmony and beauty of each level of love emanate. When climbing the ladder, each stage seems more beautiful, stable, and harmonious than the last because it brings us closer to this Source, considered to be God for the Sufis and the Form of the Beautiful for Plato. Once one reaches the Source, one can fully appreciate the beauty of every level, every phenomenon, because one understands they have been loving this Source of Beauty as it was manifested in each created phenomenon all along.
Whether or not we are willing to entertain the mystical dimension of these traditions that place a Divine bestower of beauty at the top of the ladder of love, love reductionism is a powerful framework for wisely orienting us toward the patterns that govern human and social motivation. Why do we desire more money? Because we believe it will produce a more easeful, harmonious mind state or a more aesthetically pleasing external environment. Why do we grieve the loss of a loved one? Because we miss the beauty that we shared. Why do we desire to make a positive difference in the world? Because we desire to be connected to something larger than ourselves and make that larger whole beautiful. Why do we pursue scientific explanations? Because harmonious, ordered, systematic models of the world are beautiful and allow us to create beautiful things. On a slightly more practical note, why do we continue to desire things, such as money, sex, or personal pleasure, that place us on a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows? These experiences do involve a real appreciation of beauty but they lead to disappointment and vacillation because they involve an appreciation of the beauty of only one fleeting aspect of our experience not the beauty of the underlying structure of nature and society. On the other hand, committing to the good of one’s community, to developing one’s character, or to a spiritual or religious ideal allows one to continually appreciate and participate in the beauty of something more stable and more lasting.
Science is a wonderful tool for illuminating the patterns that govern the flow of the material world. Simply reducing the experiential aspects of our lives to scientific laws, however, does quite the opposite. A material reductionist account of subjective and intersubjective experiences does not illuminate or explain but erases and deadens; it drains our motivations, our experiences, and our inner life of their richness, leaving us with an empty shell, wondering if what we experience “matters.” Religious, mythic, and philosophical systems of knowing are not anti-science. On the contrary, they can do the same for the lived, subjective, and intersubjective aspects of our lives that science does for the material. Religious and mythic explanations illuminate the underlying patterns that govern our motivation and experience and, in doing so, help us to orient toward these patterns with wisdom and understanding. We do not need to dispose of millennia of wisdom to preserve the understanding natural science can give us concerning the material world. All we have to lose by respecting other ways of knowing within their proper domains is the arrogance and hubris of thinking that one explanation—and our culture’s explanation at that—is the only one needed for every aspect of this complex life we live.
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