Reductionist materialism is an approach or a set of beliefs that claim that the mind and all its functions are the results of material processes taking place in the body. It reduces mental events to interactions between physical parts, rather than holistically viewing the mind as a part of a larger system of which it is a part. It views the mind in terms of basic elements and suggests that any phenomenon can be explained by physical or chemical processes. This form of materialism is contrastive to a holistic view of the mind which sees it as part of a larger integrated system, in which the body and mind are not seen as separate entities.

See also: natural selection, left hemisphere, right hemisphere, corpus callosum