reductionist
Breaks wholes down
Reductionist describes explaining complex phenomena by breaking them down into simpler components.
A reductionist approach to consciousness might treat it as nothing but neurons firing.
The term often carries criticism—suggesting something essential is lost when you reduce love to chemistry or art to market forces.
As a noun, a reductionist is someone who takes this approach: He's such a reductionist about everything.
Made misleadingly basic
- narrowOf small width
- mechanisticViewing systems as machines
- formulaicFollowing a set template
- crudeUnpolished, raw state
dismissive · one-dimensional · myopic · shortsighted · simplistic · greedy · flattening · decontextualized
Prioritizing goods over spirit
- physicalismAll is matter
- determinismDoctrine of causal necessity
- mechanismMeans by which something operates
- atomismDiscrete particles compose everything
monism · positivism · empiricism · scientism · essentialism · parsimony · Occam's razor · naturalism
Basic, of natural forces
- fundamentalForming the base
- bareLacking any covering
- sparseThinly scattered or distributed
- strippedHad coverings removed
essential · basic · austere · stark · unadorned · streamlined · skeletal · pared-down
Purify through vaporization
- boil downReduce to essentials
- pareRemove outer layer
- condenseMake more compact
- strip downRemove covering or components
decompose · analyze · dissect · break down · deconstruct · compartmentalize · isolate · abstract
oversimplified
Made misleadingly basic
- narrowOf small width
- mechanisticViewing systems as machines
- formulaicFollowing a set template
crude · dismissive · one-dimensional · myopic · shortsighted · simplistic · greedy · flattening · decontextualized · impoverished
materialism
Prioritizing goods over spirit
- physicalismAll is matter
- determinismDoctrine of causal necessity
- mechanismMeans by which something operates
atomism · monism · positivism · empiricism · scientism · essentialism · parsimony · Occam's razor · naturalism · nominalism
elemental
Basic, of natural forces
- fundamentalForming the base
- bareLacking any covering
- sparseThinly scattered or distributed
stripped · essential · basic · austere · stark · unadorned · streamlined · skeletal · pared-down · no-frills
distill
Purify through vaporization
strip down · decompose · analyze · dissect · break down · deconstruct · compartmentalize · isolate · abstract · schematize
- thinking stylesanalytical, creative thinker, critical thinker, rational, critical
- research methodsexperiment, hypothesis, deduction, experiments, induction
- freethinkersfreethinker, freethinkers, secularists, rationalist, rationalists
reductionistholistic
Addressing interconnected wholes
integrative · wholistic · synthetic · gestalt · synergistic
reductionistemergent
Newly come into existence
pluralist · multifactorial · multilevel · non-linear · expansionist