Glen, I think you are spot on with this:
> it's a compliment, albeit a back-handed one. It seems to have become a > term we use for careful thinkers. You only get called "reductionist" if > you keep nit-picking until everyone's mad at you. [grin] Up until that I am very pro reductionist, because that is actually also the context in which I encounter the word: when people _really_ want to know what's going in, other people who are fine with "wishy-washy" tend to call them "reductionist" and mean it in a derogatory sense; although it's actually a compliment. Reductionism is about understanding what's going on under the hood. I don't know why people oppose this. Cheers, Günther -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/ Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
