On Bickle’s failure to give a formal account of the location in the new-wave reductionist spectrum

In this paper I discuss John Bickle’s attempt to provide a formal procedure to locate a certain reduction relation in the Hooker’s and Churchland’s New wave reductionist spectrum. Bickle’s main motivation is to react against the ‘Khunnian flavored,’ internal-to-scientific-practice pragmatist solution endorsed by Patricia Churchland when faced with the lack of a formal and external way to identify a reduction in the spectrum. Bickle tries to solve this problem by reformulating Hooker’s insights within a structuralist framework so establishing an external-toscientific-practice formal solution. I show that Bickle fails on his attempt and, as a consequence, we should adopt Patricia Churchland pragmatic stance regarding reductionist and ontological decisions.