In the quest to understand the human mind, we’re often drawn to the hope of integration—bringing our ordinary talk of thoughts, beliefs, and feelings into line with the scientific story of neurons, evolution, and information. But how we go about that integration matters.
Two paths have emerged: naturalisation and reduction. Both aim to explain mental phenomena in terms that fit within a naturalistic worldview. But they differ in tone, ambition, and what they’re willing to preserve from our everyday mental vocabulary.
In this blog post, we explore the distinction between naturalising the mind and reducing it, why it matters, and how this choice reflects deeper views about science, language, and what it means to be human.
What Is Reduction?
Reduction is the idea that complex phenomena can—and should—be explained in terms of more basic elements. In physics, we reduce heat to molecular motion. In biology, we reduce life to biochemical processes. The hope is that we can do the same for mental states: reduce them to brain states, or to functional roles in computational systems.
In philosophy of mind, reductive physicalism holds that:
Mental states are physical states—nothing more, nothing less.
For example:
- Belief = a certain neural configuration.
- Pain = firing in C-fibers.
- Memory = stored synaptic weights in the brain.
Reductive explanations aim for identity: to say that what we once described in one way (e.g., pain) just is something described more precisely in another (e.g., neural activity).
Why Reduction Appeals:
- It promotes ontological simplicity—fewer kinds of things in the universe.
- It supports scientific unity—everything is made of the same stuff.
- It seeks definitive answers.
But reduction often comes at a cost.
What Is Naturalisation?
Naturalisation is more modest. It doesn’t aim to eliminate or replace mental concepts, but to understand them within a scientific framework. Instead of saying “beliefs are brain states,” it asks:
How can we make sense of beliefs in light of what we know about brains, evolution, computation, and biology?
Naturalisation is about translation and integration, not erasure. It tries to preserve the explanatory force and subjective structure of mental life, while grounding them in naturalistic terms.
For example:
- Pain is understood as a biological and experiential phenomenon, not just as neural firing.
- Belief is modeled as an evolved function with informational and behavioral roles, not merely a physical configuration.
Why Naturalisation Appeals:
- It respects the complexity and uniqueness of mental concepts.
- It allows for pluralism in explanation (biological, psychological, phenomenological).
- It keeps our first-person experience in the picture, rather than discarding it as noise.
The Key Differences:
|
|
Reduction |
Naturalisation |
|
Goal |
Replace with more fundamental terms |
Make compatible with science |
|
Method |
Identity or elimination |
Integration and reinterpretation |
|
Attitude to folk concepts |
Often dismissive |
Often preservative |
|
View of mind |
Mental states = physical states |
Mental states emerge from physical states |
|
Risk |
Oversimplification |
Vagueness or incompleteness |
Why the Distinction Matters
1. How We Value Experience
Reduction can struggle to account for subjective life—what it feels like to be in pain, to grieve, to choose. Naturalisation seeks to preserve phenomenology without lapsing into dualism.
2. How We Practice Science
Reduction works best when the target phenomena are stable, clearly defined, and measurable. But mental states are often:
- Vague
- Context-dependent
- Culturally shaped
Naturalisation acknowledges that not all phenomena can be captured by strict reduction, and allows space for interdisciplinary inquiry—linking neuroscience with psychology, linguistics, sociology, and philosophy.
3. How We Understand Ourselves
If you tell someone that love is “just” oxytocin, you might explain a mechanism—but you also risk flattening the meaning. Naturalisation asks how oxytocin relates to love—not how it replaces it.
This approach maintains space for norms, values, intentions, and stories—all vital to how people understand and navigate their lives.
Is One Better Than the Other?
Not necessarily. Both have their place.
- Reduction is powerful when dealing with well-defined phenomena—like explaining memory storage at the synaptic level.
- Naturalisation is essential when dealing with meaning, normativity, emotion, and agency—phenomena deeply entangled with context and experience.
Rather than choosing one path exclusively, a layered approach may be wisest:
Use reduction where it clarifies, and naturalisation where it preserves the richness of the mind.
Final Thoughts: Two Lenses, One Mystery
The mind is both a natural object and a lived experience. It is made of matter and meaning, function and feeling. Reduction gives us a microscope to zoom in on the mechanics. Naturalisation gives us a map to place those mechanics in the story of human life.
We need both lenses. And perhaps the deepest wisdom lies in knowing when to use which—when to seek simplification, and when to honor complexity.
Because the goal isn’t just to explain the mind.
It’s to understand it—and, in doing so, better understand ourselves.