Abstract
The concept of levels has been used broadly across the history of science and across diverse areas of contemporary science as a principle for organizing investigation and knowledge of the natural world. Invoking levels has also played key roles in philosophy of science work about scientific explanation, metaphysical (anti-)reductionism, intertheoretical reduction, the relations among fields of science, discovery and description in science, and physicalism. Recently, some philosophers question this “leveling” of science and nature, alleging that this imposed, artificial structure distorts our understanding of science and nature. In this symposium, we explore some arguments for eliminating the concept of levels from our thinking in different areas of science, and we consider whether and in what ways science and philosophy of science should do without the invocation of levels. This session includes philosophers of biology, chemistry, neuroscience, and social science so that we are well positioned to explore diverse notions of and context for ‘levels.’ We ask: (a) what purposes do invocations of levels serve in these different areas, (b) what are the problems with those invocations of levels, and (c) are there different ways of accomplishing these purposes that do not suffer from the same problems?
