Mechanistic Abstraction (original) (raw)
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We provide an explicit taxonomy of legitimate kinds of abstraction within constitutive explanation. We argue that abstraction is an inherent aspect of adequate mechanistic explanation. Mechanistic explanations-even ideally complete ones-typically involve many kinds of abstraction and do not require maximal detail. Some kinds of abstraction play the ontic role of identifying the specific complex components, subsets of causal powers, and organizational relations-among the many present within a mechanism-which produce a suitably general phenomenon. Therefore, abstract constitutive explanations are both legitimate and mechanistic. Thus, we reject the requirement of maximal detail, namely, the requirement that an ideally complete mechanistic explanation must include as many details as possible.
II-Mechanistic Explanation: Its Scope and Limits
Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 2013
This paper explores the question of whether all or most explanations in biology are, or ideally should be, 'mechanistic'. I begin by providing an account of mechanistic explanation, making use of the interventionist ideas about causation I have developed elsewhere. This account emphasizes the way in which mechanistic explanations, at least in the biological sciences, integrate difference-making and spatio-temporal information, and exhibit what I call fine-tunedness of organization. I also emphasize the role played by modularity conditions in mechanistic explanation. I will then argue, in agreement with John Dupré, that, given this account, it is plausible that many biological systems require explanations that are relatively nonmechanical or depart from expectations one associates with the behaviour of machines.
New Mechanistic Explanation and the Need for Explanatory Constraints
Scientific Composition and Metaphysical Ground, 2016
This paper critiques the new mechanistic explanatory program on grounds that, even when applied to the kinds of examples that it was originally designed to treat, it does not distinguish correct explanations from those that blunder. First, I offer a systematization of the explanatory account, one according to which explanations are mechanistic models that satisfy three desiderata: they must 1) represent causal relations, 2) describe the proper parts, and 3) depict the system at the right ‘level.’ Second, I argue that even the most developed attempts to fulfill these desiderata fall short by failing to appropriately constrain explanatorily apt mechanistic models.
The Completeness of Mechanistic Explanations
The purpose of the paper is to provide methodological guidelines for evaluating mechanistic explanations meant to complement previously elaborated interventionist norms. According to current accounts, a satisfactory mechanistic explanation should include all of the relevant features of the mechanism, its component entities and activities, their properties and their organization, as well as exhibit productive continuity. It is not specified, however, how this kind of mechanistic completeness can be demonstrated. I argue that parameter sufficiency inferences based on mathematical model simulations of known mechanisms is used to determine whether a mechanism capable of producing the phenomenon of interest can be constructed from mechanistic components organized, acting, and having the properties described in the mechanistic explanation.
Mechanisms are organized systems of parts that operate in such a way as to produce phenomena. It would seem, however, that mechanistic explanations can be indefinitely detailed and expanded by bottoming out at lower levels of composition and by taking into consideration higher-level systems. Given the possibility of an indefinite descent to lower levels of composition, how deep does one need to go in order to claim that the explanation satisfactorily accounts for the phenomenon of interest? And given the possibility of a progressive integration into more holistic contexts, how far one needs to go in order to claim that the mechanism described in the explanation acts as an independent module capable of producing the phenomenon on its own? I argue that the answer to these questions lies in the elaboration of norms for evaluating the completeness of mechanistic explanations.
Mechanistic explanation: Integrating the ontic and epistemic
Erkenntnis
"Craver claims that mechanistic explanation is ontic, while Bechtel claims that it is epistemic. While this distinction between ontic and epistemic explanation originates with Salmon, the ideas have changed in the modern debate on mechanistic explanation, where the frame of the debate is changing. I will explore what Bechtel and Craver’s claims mean, and argue that good mechanistic explanations must satisfy both ontic and epistemic normative constraints on what is a good explanation. I will argue for ontic constraints by drawing on Craver’s work in section 2.1, and argue for epistemic constraints by drawing on Bechtel’s work in section 2.2. Along the way, I will argue that Bechtel and Craver actually agree with this claim. I argue that we should not take either kind of constraints to be fundamental, in section 3, and close in section 4 by considering what remains at stake in making a distinction between ontic and epistemic constraints on mechanistic explanation. I suggest that we should not concentrate on either kind of constraint, to the neglect of the other, arguing for the importance of seeing the relationship as one of integration."
Mechanisms Without Mechanistic Explanation
Synthese
Some recent accounts of constitutive relevance have identified mechanism components with entities that are causal intermediaries between the input and output of a mechanism. I argue that on such accounts there is no distinctive inter-level form of mechanistic explanation and that this highlights an absence in the literature of a compelling argument that there are such explanations. Nevertheless, the entities that these accounts call 'components' do play an explanatory role. Studying causal intermediaries linking variables X and Y provides knowledge of the counterfactual conditions under which X will continue to bring about Y. This explanatory role does not depend on whether intermediate variables count as components. The question of whether there are distinctively mechanistic explanations remains open.
Mechanistic Explanations and Deliberate Misrepresentations
Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2020
The philosophy of mechanisms has developed rapidly during the last 30 years. As mechanisms-based explanations (MBEs) are often seen as an alternative to nomological, law-based explanations, MBEs could be relevant in IS. We begin by offering a short history of mechanistic philosophy and set out to clarify the contemporary landscape. We then suggest that mechanistic models provide an alternative to variance and process models in IS. Finally, we highlight how MBEs typically contain deliberate misrepresentations. Although MBEs have recently been advocated as critical realist (CR) accounts in IS, idealizations (deliberate misrepresentations) seem to violate some fundamental tenets of CR and research method principles for CR. Idealizations in MBEs, therefore, may risk being regarded as flawed in IS. If it turns out that CR cannot account for idealizations, naturalism can, and it does so without extra-philosophical baggage.
Causation at Different Levels: Tracking the commitments of mechanistic explanations
This paper tracks the commitments of mechanistic explanations focusing on the relation between activities at different levels. It is pointed out that the mechanistic approach is inherently committed to identifying causal connections at higher levels with causal connections at lower levels. For the mechanistic approach to succeed a mechanism as a whole must do the very same thing what its parts organised in a particular way do. The mechanistic approach must also utilise bridge principles connecting different causal terms of different theoretical vocabularies in order to make the identities of causal connections transparent. These general commitments get confronted with two claims made by certain proponents of the mechanistic approach: William Bechtel often argues that within the mechanistic framework it is possible to balance between reducing higher levels and maintaining their autonomy at the same time, whereas, in a recent paper, Craver and Bechtel argue that the mechanistic approach is able to make downward causation intelligible. The paper concludes that the mechanistic approach imbued with identity statements is no better candidate for anchoring higher levels to lower ones while maintaining their autonomy at the same time than standard reductive accounts are, and that what mechanistic explanations are able to do at best is showing that downward causation does not exist.