In a manner that simplifies or analyzes something by reducing it to its essential components, often at the expense of its full complexity. This approach typically breaks down a subject into its fundamental parts to understand it better, sometimes overlooking the nuanced interplay of those components. The goal is usually to find the underlying principles or causes by simplifying a complex subject.
Reductively meaning with examples
- The physicist explained the universe reductively, breaking down everything to its smallest particles and fundamental forces. While insightful, the model occasionally struggled to account for the emergent properties of complex systems due to its focus on the basic building blocks of matter.
- In an effort to reduce the costs of production, the company analyzed its operations reductively, identifying and eliminating every non-essential step. Critics, however, worried that this overly simplified approach would hurt productivity and quality with the new stripped-down approach.
- The philosopher approached morality reductively, attempting to derive ethical principles from fundamental human desires and psychological traits. Some argue that this framework, while elegant, fails to capture the spiritual dimensions of human ethics and ethical behavior and fails to see the full picture.
- The historian examined the cultural phenomenon reductively, focusing on the economic factors that, in the long run, drove major events and innovations in society. While informative, the method has been criticized for downplaying the impact of social, political, and individual factors on the broader historical context.