Literary notes about Irreducible (AI summary)
The term "irreducible" is often used to denote the idea of fundamental, indivisible elements that resist further simplification. For example, Durkheim applies the term to describe the basic, inborn components of human thought as well as distinct groups that are separate by a break of continuity ([1], [2]). Similarly, William James employs it to refer both to the elemental constituents of worldly and religious life and to the inescapable contingencies that structure our existence ([3], [4]). In other contexts, authors like Yogananda evoke "irreducible" to emphasize a minimal, almost elemental standard of living, while Joyce uses it to illustrate a uniqueness in cultural or ethnic identity ([5], [6]). Schopenhauer and Santayana further extend the idea by marking a clear boundary between dualistic notions such as object and subject, or natural existence and logical principle ([7], [8]). Overall, the word "irreducible" in literature frequently conveys a sense of elemental simplicity or an unbridgeable division within complex phenomena.
- They are represented as so many simple and irreducible data, imminent in the human mind by virtue of its inborn constitution.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - Each of them is represented as irreducible into similar groups, as separated from them by a break of continuity, and as constituting a distinct realm.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - This is one of the simple irreducible elements of this world's life after millions of years of divine opportunity and twenty centuries of Christ.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James - The moral judgment may lead us to postulate as irreducible the contingencies of the world.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James - Each of our small bedrooms proved to contain only the irreducible minimum-a bed, handmade of rope.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation of that multiple, ethnically irreducible consummation?
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - We may also regard these forms as the irreducible boundary between object and subject.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer - The former remains always remote from natural existence and the latter irreducible to a logical principle.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
