The idea that phenomena such as emergence and work within the field of complex systems theory pose limits to reductionism has been advocated by Stuart Kauffman.
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Michael Ruse has criticized ontological reductionism as an improper argument against vitalism.
The central theses of logical positivism (verificationism, the analytic-synthetic distinction, reductionism, etc.) came under sharp attack after World War 2 by thinkers such as Nelson Goodman, W.V. Quine, Hilary Putnam, Karl Popper, and Richard Rorty.
It is the defining mode of Western historiography and ethnography until the nineteenth century and even after, according to Touraj Atabaki, manifesting itself in the historiography of the Middle East and Central Asia as Eurocentrism, over-generalization, and reductionism.