The past two decades have witnessed an increase in interest in social mechanisms and mechanistic explanations of social macro-phenomena. This paper addresses the question of what the components of social mechanisms in mechanistic explanations of social macro-phenomena must be. Analytical sociology’s initial position and the main new proposals by analytical sociologists are discussed. It is argued that all of them are faced with outstanding difficulties. Subsequently, a minimal requirement regarding the components of social mechanisms is introduced. It is held that (...) a component of a social mechanism in a mechanistic explanation of a social macro-phenomenon must not have the explanandum phenomenon as a part of it. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the question whether a mechanistic approach can account for evolutionary causes. The last decade has seen a major attempt to account for natural selection as a mechanism. Nevertheless, we stress the relevance of broadening the debate by including the other evolutionary causes inside the mechanistic approach, in order to be a legitimate conceptual framework on the same footing as other approaches to evolutionary theory. We analyse the current debate on natural selection as a mechanism, and (...) extend it to the rest of the evolutionary causes. We focus on three approaches that we call the stochastic view, the functional view, and the minimalist view. We argue that all of them are unable to account for evolutionary causes as mechanisms. It is concluded that the current mechanistic proposals cannot be accepted as a common framework for evolutionary causes. Finally, we outline some guidelines and requirements that any mechanistic proposal should meet in order to be applied to evolutionary theory. (shrink)

We begin by distinguishing computationalism from a number of other theses that are sometimes conflated with it. We also distinguish between several important kinds of computation: computation in a generic sense, digital computation, and analog computation. Then, we defend a weak version of computationalism—neural processes are computations in the generic sense. After that, we reject on empirical grounds the common assimilation of neural computation to either analog or digital computation, concluding that neural computation is sui generis. Analog computation requires continuous (...) signals; digital computation requires strings of digits. But current neuroscientific evidence indicates that typical neural signals, such as spike trains, are graded like continuous signals but are constituted by discrete functional elements (spikes); thus, typical neural signals are neither continuous signals nor strings of digits. It follows that neural computation is sui generis. Finally, we highlight three important consequences of a proper understanding of neural computation for the theory of cognition. First, understanding neural computation requires a specially designed mathematical theory (or theories) rather than the mathematical theories of analog or digital computation. Second, several popular views about neural computation turn out to be incorrect. Third, computational theories of cognition that rely on non-neural notions of computation ought to be replaced or reinterpreted in terms of neural computation. (shrink)

We sketch a framework for building a unified science of cognition. This unification is achieved by showing how functional analyses of cognitive capacities can be integrated with the multilevel mechanistic explanations of neural systems. The core idea is that functional analyses are sketches of mechanisms , in which some structural aspects of a mechanistic explanation are omitted. Once the missing aspects are filled in, a functional analysis turns into a full-blown mechanistic explanation. By this process, functional analyses are seamlessly integrated (...) with multilevel mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

According to pancomputationalism, everything is a computing system. In this paper, I distinguish between different varieties of pancomputationalism. I find that although some varieties are more plausible than others, only the strongest variety is relevant to the philosophy of mind, but only the most trivial varieties are true. As a side effect of this exercise, I offer a clarified distinction between computational modelling and computational explanation.<br><br>.

The homeostatic property cluster theory is widely influential for its ability to account for many natural-kind terms in the life sciences. However, the notion of homeostatic mechanism has never been fully explicated. In 2009, Carl Craver interpreted the notion in the sense articulated in discussions on mechanistic explanation and pointed out that the HPC account equipped with such notion invites interest-relativity. In this paper, we analyze two recent refinements on HPC: one that avoids any reference to the causes of the (...) clustering of properties and one that replaces homeostatic mechanisms with causal networks represented by causal graphs. We argue that the former is too slender to account for some inductive inference in science and the latter, thicker account invites interest-relativity, as the original HPC does. This suggests that human interest will be an un-eliminative part of a satisfactory account of natural kindness. We conclude by discussing the implication of interest-relativity to the naturalness, reality, or objectivity of kinds and indicating an overlooked aspect of natural kinds that requires further studies. (shrink)

Although the literature on the issue of pluralism within the philosophy of science is very extensive, this paper focuses on the metaphysical causal pluralism that emerges from the new mechanistic discussion on causality. The main aim is to situate the new mechanistic views on causation within the account of varieties of causal pluralism framed by Psillos ( 2009 ). Paying attention to his taxonomy of metaphysical views on causation (i.e., the straightjacket view, the functional view, the two-concept view, the agnostic (...) view and the atheist view) will help clarify differences in opinion and, at the same time, make it possible to elucidate the main metaphysical theses present within the new mechanistic debate. Special attention is given to S. Glennan’s theory of causation, since it is unique in offering an overall metaphysical view of the issue. It is also argued that mechanists are not “atheists” on causation: while all of them are causal realists, most mechanists are “agnostic” on causation, with a few exceptions such as S. Glennan, P. Machamer and J. Bogen. (shrink)

The concept of mechanism in biology has three distinct meanings. It may refer to a philosophical thesis about the nature of life and biology (‘mechanicism’), to the internal workings of a machine-like structure (‘machine mechanism’), or to the causal explanation of a particular phenomenon (‘causal mechanism’). In this paper I trace the conceptual evolution of ‘mechanism’ in the history of biology, and I examine how the three meanings of this term have come to be featured in the philosophy of biology, (...) situating the new ‘mechanismic program’ in this context. I argue that the leading advocates of the mechanismic program (i.e., Craver, Darden, Bechtel, etc.) inadvertently conflate the different senses of ‘mechanism’. Specifically, they all inappropriately endow causal mechanisms with the ontic status of machine mechanisms, and this invariably results in problematic accounts of the role played by mechanism-talk in scientific practice. I suggest that for effective analyses of the concept of mechanism, causal mechanisms need to be distinguished from machine mechanisms, and the new mechanismic program in the philosophy of biology needs to be demarcated from the traditional concerns of mechanistic biology. (shrink)

Mechanisms are a way of explaining how biological phenomena work rather than why single elements of biological systems are there. However, mechanisms are usually described as physiological entities, and little or no attention is paid to malfunction as an independent theoretical concept. On the other hand, malfunction is the main focus of interest of applied sciences such as medicine. In this paper I argue that malfunctions are parts of pathological mechanisms, which should be considered separate theoretical entities, conceptually having a (...) priority over physiological sequences. While pathological mechanisms can be described in terms of a Cummins-like mechanistic explanation, they show some unnoticed peculiarities when compared to physiological ones. Some features of pathological mechanisms are considered, such as outcome variability, ambivalence and dependence on a range. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with concentrations of entities, which play an important—albeit often overlooked—role in scientific explanation. First, I discuss an example from molecular biology to show that concentrations can play an irreducible causal role. Second, I provide a preliminary philosophical analysis of this causal role, suggesting some implications for extant theories of causation. I conclude by introducing the concept of causation by concentration, a form of statistical causation whose widespread presence throughout the sciences has been unduly neglected and which (...) deserves to be studied in more depth. 1 Introduction2 Solving Lillie's Paradox: Lysogenic Induction in Phage λ3 Repressor Concentration and the Tuning of the Switch4 Concentration and Causality5 Preemption in Concentrations: Analysis and Implications6 Causation by Concentration: General Definition, Refinements, and Further Applications. (shrink)

Neuroclassicism is the view that cognition is explained by “classical” computing mechanisms in the nervous system that exhibit a clear demarcation between processing machinery and read–write memory. The psychologist C. R. Gallistel has mounted a sophisticated defense of neuroclassicism by drawing from ethology and computability theory to argue that animal brains necessarily contain read–write memory mechanisms. This argument threatens to undermine the “connectionist” orthodoxy in contemporary neuroscience, which does not seem to recognize any such mechanisms. In this paper I argue (...) that the neuroclassicist critique rests on a misunderstanding of how computability theory constrains theorizing about natural computing mechanisms. (shrink)

In this study the notion of mechanistic entities is analyzed as it has been conceptualized by Hermann Lotze in his article Life. Vital Force (1842), the metaphysical foundation of which has recourse to his Metaphysik (1841) and Logik (1843). According to Lotze, explanations in the sciences are arguments which have a syntactic and a semantic structure—similar to that which became later known as the DN-model of explanation. The syntactic structure is delineated by ontological forms, the semantic by cosmological ones; the (...) latter comprise the preconditions for the construction of appearances in accord with the ontological forms. Mechanisms are embedded into this logical framework by representing the more complex spatio-temporal arrangements of cosmological entities. The coordinated model of a mechanism is a reductive type of explanation. This study also demonstrates how Lotze made use of his concept of mechanisms in order to explain law-like and probabilistic events in organic and inorganic nature, thereby establishing an original ‘oligomeric’ (i. e., a fraction of the parts of a system determines its development) variant of a preformative theory of ontogenesis which anticipates modern concepts of genetic determination. In this context, Lotze alludes to paradigms of dissipative structures. The relevance of these reflections for subsequent theories is shown by contrasting them with Schrödinger’s theory of organisms. Finally, a comparison of some aspects of Lotze’s concept of mechanisms with equivalent aspects of current normative approaches confirms that essential elements of the latter versions can be retrieved in the former one. Above that, Lotze employs the teleological aspect of ontological forms in order to determine the extent of the mechanistic system under consideration. He further differentiates three modal states of mechanisms and includes a concept to explain exceptions or irregularities. The concept of ‘activity’ is strictly excluded from his account and shown to be a metaphysical illusion. (shrink)

In a well-cited book chapter, ecologist Jared Diamond characterizes three main types of experiment performed in community ecology: laboratory experiment, field experiment, and natural experiment. Diamond argues that each form of experiment has strengths and weaknesses, with respect to, for example, realism or the ability to follow a causal trajectory. But does Diamond’s typology exhaust the available kinds of cause-finding practices? Some social scientists have characterized something they call “causal process tracing.” Is this a fourth type of experiment or something (...) else? I examine Diamond’s typology and causal process tracing in the context of a case study concerning the dynamics of wolf and deer populations on the Kaibab Plateau in the 1920s, a case that has been used as a canonical example of a trophic cascade by ecologists but which has also been subject to controversy. I argue that ecologists have profitably deployed causal process tracing together with other types of experiment to help settle questions of causality in this case. It remains to be seen how widespread the use of causal process tracing outside of the social sciences is (or could be), but there are some potentially promising applications, particularly with respect to questions about specific causal sequences. (shrink)

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary conglomerate of various research fields and disciplines, which increases the risk of fragmentation of cognitive theories. However, while most previous work has focused on theoretical integration, some kinds of integration may turn out to be monstrous, or result in superficially lumped and unrelated bodies of knowledge. In this paper, I distinguish theoretical integration from theoretical unification, and propose some analyses of theoretical unification dimensions. Moreover, two research strategies that are supposed to lead to unification are (...) analyzed in terms of the mechanistic account of explanation. Finally, I argue that theoretical unification is not an absolute requirement from the mechanistic perspective, and that strategies aiming at unification may be premature in fields where there are multiple conflicting explanatory models. (shrink)

In this paper, we adopt a physiological perspective in order to produce an intelligible overview of biological transmission in all its diversity. This allows us to put forward the analysis of transmission mechanisms, with the aim of complementing the usual focus on transmitted factors. We underline the importance of the structural, dynamical, and functional features of transmission mechanisms throughout organisms’ life cycles in order to answer to the question of what is passed on across generations, how and why. On this (...) basis, we propose a vision of biological transmission as networks of heterogeneous physiological mechanisms, not restricted to transmission mechanisms stricto sensu. They prove to be themselves suited candidates for evolutionary explanations. They are processes both necessary for evolution to happen and resulting themselves from evolution. This leads us to call for a strategy of endogenization to account for transmission, and more specifically inheritance, as evolved and evolving physiological mechanisms. (shrink)

In recent years, an increasing number of theoretical biologists and philosophers of biology have been opposing reductionist research agendas by appealing to the concept of biological autonomy which draws on the older concept of autopoiesis. In my paper, I investigate some of the ontological implications of this approach. The emphasis on autonomy and autopoiesis, together with the associated idea of organisational closure, might evoke the impression that organisms are to be categorised ontologically as substances: ontologically independent, well-individuated, discrete particulars. However, (...) I argue that this is mistaken. Autopoiesis and biological autonomy, properly understood, require a rigorous commitment to a process ontological view of life. (shrink)

In recent years, an increasing number of theoretical biologists and philosophers of biology have been opposing reductionist research agendas by appealing to the concept of biological autonomy which draws on the older concept of autopoiesis. In my paper, I investigate some of the ontological implications of this approach. The emphasis on autonomy and autopoiesis, together with the associated idea of organisational closure, might evoke the impression that organisms are to be categorised ontologically as substances: ontologically independent, well-individuated, discrete particulars. However, (...) I argue that this is mistaken. Autopoiesis and biological autonomy, properly understood, require a rigorous commitment to a process ontological view of life. (shrink)

In his recent paper in the Journal of Economic Methodology, Tobias Henschen puts forth a manipulationist definition of macroeconomic causality that strives for adequacy. As the notion of ‘adequacy’...

A strong case has been made for the role and value of mechanistic reasoning in process-oriented sciences, such as molecular biology and neuroscience. This paper shifts focus to assess the role of mechanistic reasoning in an area where it is neither obvious nor expected: population genetics. Population geneticists abstract away from the causal-mechanical details of individual organisms and, instead, use mathematics to describe population-level, statistical phenomena. This paper, first, develops a framework for the identification of mechanistic reasoning where it is (...) not obvious: mathematical and mechanistic styles of scientific reasoning. Second, it applies this framework to demonstrate that both styles are integrated in modern investigations of evolutionary biology. Characteristic of the former, applied population genetic techniques provide statistical evidence for associations between genotype, phenotype, and fitness. Characteristic of the latter, experimental interventions provide causal-mechanical evidence for associations between the very same relationships, often in the same model organisms. The upshot is a richer perspective of how evolutionary biologists build evidence for hypotheses regarding adaptive evolution and a general framework for assessing the scope of mechanistic reasoning across the sciences. (shrink)

This paper is about mechanisms and models, and how they interact. In part, it is a response to recent discussion in philosophy of biology regarding whether natural selection is a mechanism. We suggest that this debate is indicative of a more general problem that occurs when scientists produce mechanistic models of populations and their behaviour. We can make sense of claims that there are mechanisms that drive population-level phenomena such as macroeconomics, natural selection, ecology, and epidemiology. But talk of mechanisms (...) and mechanistic explanation evokes objects with well-defined and localisable parts which interact in discrete ways, while models of populations include parts and interactions that are neither local nor discrete in any actual populations. This apparent tension can be resolved by carefully distinguishing between the properties of a model and those of the system it represents. To this end, we provide an analysis that recognises the flexible relationship between a mechanistic model and its target system. In turn, this reveals a surprising feature of mechanistic representation and explanation: it can occur even when there is a mismatch between the mechanism of the model and that of its target. Our analysis reframes the debate, providing an alternative way to interpret scientists’ mechanism-talk , which initially motivated the issue. We suggest that the relevant question is not whether any population-level phenomenon such as natural selection is a mechanism, but whether it can be usefully modelled as though it were a particular type of mechanism. (shrink)

Philosophers of the social sciences are increasingly convinced that macro-and micro-explanations are complementary. Whereas macro-explanations are broad, micro-explanations are deep. I distinguish between weak and strong complementarity: Strongly complementary explanations improve one another when integrated, weakly complementary explanations do not. To demonstrate the explanatory autonomy of different levels of explanation, explanatory pluralists mostly presuppose the weak form of complementarity. By scrutinizing the notions of explanatory depth and breadth, I argue that macro- and micro-accounts of the same phenomenon are more often (...) strongly complementary. This invites a revision of the pluralist position in which integration promotes explanatory progress. Key Words: explanatory pluralism • social science • explanatory depth • explanatory breadth • mechanism. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the question of what current computers are from the point of view of human-computer interaction. In the early days of computing, the Turing machine (TM) has been the cornerstone of the understanding of computers. The TM defines what can be computed and how computation can be carried out. However, in the last decades, computers have evolved and increasingly become interactive systems, reacting in real-time to external events in an ongoing loop. We argue that the TM (...) does not provide a mechanistic explanation for interactive computing. The reason is that the fundamental phenomena relevant to interactive computing are out of the scope of classical computability theory. Part of the explanatory power of the TM relies on what we propose to call an execution model. An execution model belongs to a level of abstraction where it is possible to describe both the functional architecture and the execution in mechanistic terms. An updated execution model is warranted to provide the minimal mechanistic description for interactive computation as a counterpart of what the TM could explain regarding Church-Turing computation. It would support an explanation of the ubiquitous computing devices we know - those interacting with humans, e.g., through digital interfaces. We show that such a model is not available within interactive models of computation and that relevant abstractions and concerns are available in computer engineering but need to be identified and gathered. To fill this void, we propose to reflect on the level of abstraction required to support the mechanistic description of an interactive execution and propose some preliminary requirements. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse how researchers use the categories of race and ethnicity with reference to genetics and genomics. We show that there is still considerable conceptual “messiness” (despite the wide-ranging and popular debate on the subject) when it comes to the use of ethnoracial categories in genetics and genomics that among other things makes it difficult to properly compare and interpret research using ethnoracial categories, as well as draw conclusions from them. Finally, we briefly reconstruct some of the (...) biases of reductionism to which geneticists (as well as other researchers referring to genetic methods and explanations) are particularly exposed to, and we analyse the problem in the context of the biologization of ethnoracial categories. Our work constitutes a novel, in-depth contribution to the debate about reporting race and ethnicity in biomedical and health research. First, we reconstruct the theoretical background assumptions about racial ontology which researchers implicitly presume in their studies with the aid of a sample of recent papers published in medical journals about COVID-19. Secondly, we use the typology of the biases of reductionism to the problem of biologization of ethnoracial categories with reference to genetics and genomics. (shrink)

Current orthodoxy takes representation to be essential to computation. However, a philosophical account of computation that does not appeal to representation would be useful, given the difficulties involved in successfully theorizing representation. Piccinini's recent mechanistic account of computation proposes to do just that: it couches computation in terms of what certain mechanisms do without requiring the manipulation or processing of representations whatsoever (Piccinini 2015). Most crucially, mechanisms must process medium-independent vehicles. There are two ways to understand what "medium-independence" means on (...) this account; however, on either understanding, the account fails. Either too many things end up being counted as computational, or purportedly natural computations (e.g., neural computations) cannot be counted at all. In the end, illustrating this failure sheds some light on the way to revise the orthodoxy in the hope of a better account of computation. (shrink)

The leitmotif of Mario Bunge’s work was that the philosophy of science should be informed by a comprehensive scientific philosophy, and vice versa; with both firmly rooted in realism and materialism. Now Bunge left such a big oeuvre, comprising more than 70 books and hundreds of articles, that it is impossible to review it in its entirety. In addition to biographical remarks, this obituary will therefore restrict itself to some select issues of his philosophy: his scientific metaphysics, his philosophy of (...) physics, his concept of mechanismic explanation, his philosophy of social science and technology, and his approach to the demarcation problem. The final section will explore why Bunge, despite the extent and depth of his work, has not achieved a more prominent status in the philosophical community. (shrink)

Current debates about the integration of traditional and academic ecological knowledge struggle with a dilemma of division and assimilation. On the one hand, the emphasis on differences between traditional and academic perspectives has been criticized as creating an artificial divide that brands TEK as “non-scientific” and contributes to its marginalization. On the other hand, there has been increased concern about inadequate assimilation of Indigenous and other traditional perspectives into scientific practices that disregards the holistic nature and values of TEK. The (...) aim of this article is to develop a practice-based account of the epistemic relations between TEK and AEK that avoids both horns of the dilemma. While relations between TEK and AEK are often described in terms of the “holistic” nature of the former and the “mechanistic” character of the latter, we argue that a simple holism–mechanism divide misrepresents the epistemic resources of both TEK and AEK. Based on the literature on mechanistic explanations in philosophy of science, we argue that holders of TEK are perfectly capable of identifying mechanisms that underlie ecological phenomena while AEK often relies on non-mechanistic strategies of dealing with ecological complexity. Instead of generic characterizations of knowledge systems as either mechanistic or holistic, we propose to approach epistemic relations between knowledge systems by analyzing their heuristics in practice. (shrink)

The Hodgkin–Huxley (HH) model of the action potential is a theoretical pillar of modern neurobiology. In a number of recent publications, Carl Craver ([2006], [2007], [2008]) has argued that the model is explanatorily deficient because it does not reveal enough about underlying molecular mechanisms. I offer an alternative picture of the HH model, according to which it deliberately abstracts from molecular specifics. By doing so, the model explains whole-cell behaviour as the product of a mass of underlying low-level events. The (...) issue goes beyond cellular neurobiology, for the strategy of abstraction exhibited in the HH case is found in a range of biological contexts. I discuss why it has been largely neglected by advocates of the mechanist approach to explanation. 1 Introduction2 A Primer on the HH Model2.1 The basic qualitative picture2.2 The quantitative model3 Interlude: What Did Hodgkin and Huxley Think?4 Craver’s View4.1 Mechanistic explanation4.2 Sketches4.3 Craver's view: The HH model as a mechanism sketch5 An Alternative View of the HH Model5.1 Another look at the equations5.2 The discrete-gating picture5.3 The road paved by Hodgkin and Huxley5.4 Summary and comparison to Craver6 Conclusion: The HH Model and Mechanistic Explanation6.1 Sketches and abstractions6.2 Why has aggregative abstraction been overlooked? (shrink)

I distinguish three theses associated with the new mechanistic philosophy – concerning causation, explanation and scientific methodology. Advocates of each thesis are identified and relationships among them are outlined. I then look at some recent work on natural selection and mechanisms. There, attention to different kinds of New Mechanism significantly affects of what is at stake.

What are scientific theories and how should they be represented? In this article, I propose a causal–structural account, according to which scientific theories are to be represented as sets of interrelated causal and credal nets. In contrast with other accounts of scientific theories (such as Sneedian structuralism, Kitcher’s unificationist view, and Darden’s theory of theoretical components), this leaves room for causality to play a substantial role. As a result, an interesting account of explanation is provided, which sheds light on explanatory (...) unification within a causalist framework. The theory of classical genetics is used as a case study. 1 Introduction2 The Theory of Classical Genetics3 Three Philosophical Accounts of the Theory of Classical Genetics3.1 The structuralist account3.2 Kitcher’s unificationism3.3 Darden and theory change in science4 A Common Lacuna: Where is Causality?5 Woodward’s Interventionist Account of Causation6 Causal Bayes Nets and Their Interrelations6.1 Causal Bayes nets6.2 Relations among causal nets6.3 Credal nets and their interrelations7 The Theory of the Gene and its Causal Graph8 A First Exemplar: Stem Length in Pea Plants8.1 Three crosses on stem length in pea plants8.2 The causal graph for stem length in pea plants8.3 Morgan’s explanatory principles and the credal net for stem length in pea plants9 Explaining Mendel’s Crosses: A Causal–Structural Account10 Monohybrid Crosses with Complete Dominance11 Exemplars,Explanatory Patterns, Generic Credal Nets, and Mechanism Schemas12 Incomplete Dominance13 Anomalies14 Multi-hybrid Crosses with Independent Assortment15 Multi-hybrid Crosses with Linkage and Crossing-Over16 Double Crossing-Over and the Linear Order of the Gene17 Causal–Structural Explanation18 Explanatory Unification19 Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

In this article, I present two conceptual problems for Craver's mutual manipulability account of constitutive relevance in mechanisms. First, constitutive relevance threatens to imply causal relevance despite Craver (and Bechtel)'s claim that they are strictly distinct. Second, if (as is intuitively appealing) parthood is defined in terms of spatio-temporal inclusion, then the mutual manipulability account is prone to counterexamples, as I show by a case of endosymbiosis. I also present a methodological problem (a case of experimental underdetermination) and formulate two (...) partial, but fallible solutions based on the notions of parthood and synchronicity. (shrink)

Today, mechanisms and mechanistic explanation are very popular in philosophy of science and are deemed a welcome alternative to laws of nature and deductive‐nomological explanation. Starting from Mitchell's pragmatic notion of laws, I cast doubt on their status as a genuine alternative. I argue that (1) all complex‐systems mechanisms ontologically must rely on stable regularities, while (2) the reverse need not hold. Analogously, (3) models of mechanisms must incorporate pragmatic laws, while (4) such laws themselves need not always refer to (...) underlying mechanisms. Finally, I show that Mitchell's account is more encompassing than the mechanistic account *Received August 2008; revised January 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, B‐9000 Belgium; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

There is growing evidence that plants possess abilities associated with cognition, such as decision-making, anticipation and learning. And yet, the cognitive status of plants continues to be contested. Among the threats to plant cognitive status is the ‘Representation Demarcation Challenge’ which points to the absence of a seemingly defining aspect of cognition, namely, computation over representation with non-derived content. Defenders of plant cognition may appeal to post-cognitivist perspectives, such as enactivism, which challenge the assumptions of the Representation Demarcation Challenge. This (...) points to an impasse in the debate over plant cognition as it collapses into perennial disagreements over the best way to conceptualise the very nature of cognition. I propose a path that allows us to bypass this quagmire by reconceiving the question of what is cognitive about ‘plant cognition’ in terms of a quest to map the many possible adaptive capacities and behaviours more-or-less associated with cognition, alongside their underlying processes and mechanisms. In turn, we can examine the degrees of similarity between plants and more paradigmatically cognitive creatures. The ‘piecemeal approach’ thus shifts attention away from the abstract and dichotomous question of whether plants are cognitive and towards a series of more precise questions about the many ways and extent to which plants possess features associated with cognition. Ultimately, I suggest, the value of viewing plants through a cognitive lens may lie less in determining whether they are bona fide cognitive creatures and more in guiding research into concrete abilities and their underlying causes. (shrink)

It is generally acknowledged by proponents of ‘new mechanism’ that mechanistic explanation involves adopting a perspective, but there is less agreement on how we should understand this perspective-taking or what its implications are for practising science. This paper examines the perspectival nature of mechanistic explanation through the lens of the ‘mechanistic stance’, which falls somewhere between Dennett’s more familiar physical and design stance. We argue this approach implies three distinct and significant ways in which mechanistic explanation can be interpreted as (...) perspectival: ‘phenomenon perspectivism’, ‘pattern perspectivism’ and ‘hierarchy perspectivism’. We evaluate the strength of the perspective-dependency implied by each of these, and along the way, discuss their significance for wider debates within the new mechanism literature, such as the nature of function attribution and an ontic vs epistemic understanding of explanation. (shrink)

The mechanistic model depicts scientific explanations as involving the discovery of multi-level, organized components that constitute a target phenomenon. Meanwhile, sensorimotor enactivism purports to offer a scientifically informed account of perceptual experience as a skill-laden interactive relationship, constitutively involving both perceiver and world, rather than as an agent-bound representation of the world. Insofar as sensorimotor enactivism identifies an empirically tractable phenomenon – skillful agent-world interaction – and mechanistic explanation establishes the subpersonal components of this phenomenon, the two approaches allow for (...) a fruitful division of labor in investigating perceptual experience. On closer inspection, however, two challenges arise. First, the “representation challenge” arises because promising attempts to set out implementational details of our sensorimotor interaction with the world implicate cognitive representations, creating tension with sensorimotor enactivism’s nonrepresentational commitments. Second, the “reconstitution challenge” arises when mechanistic explanation not only uncovers the components of some established phenomenon but plays a role in “reconstituting” this phenomenon. This means that, through investigating mechanisms, perceptual experience may be reconceived such that its constituents are wholly organism-bound. We explore both challenges to the compatibility of mechanism and sensorimotor enactivism and examine possible solutions. The result is a clearer understanding of the tensions and opportunities for learning between the frameworks. (shrink)

In recent years, the ‘mechanistic view’ has developed as a popular alternative to the ‘semantic view’ concerning the identity of physical computation. However, semanticists have provided powerful arguments that suggest the mechanistic view fails to deliver essential distinctions between paradigmatic computational operations. This article reviews responses on behalf of the mechanist and uses this opportunity to propose a type of pluralism about computational identity. This pluralism contends that there are multiple ‘levels’ of properties and relations pertaining to computation that can (...) inform different kinds of individuation. As such, for the pluralist, there are multiple legitimate ways of classifying computation, depending on the nature of the system in question, and one’s own epistemic priorities. (shrink)

Enactivism advances an understanding of cognition rooted in the dynamic interaction between an embodied agent and their environment, whilst new mechanism suggests that cognition is explained by uncovering the organised components underlying cognitive capacities. On the face of it, the mechanistic model’s emphasis on localisable and decomposable mechanisms, often neural in nature, runs contrary to the enactivist ethos. Despite appearances, this paper argues that mechanistic explanations of cognition, being neither narrow nor reductive, and compatible with plausible iterations of ideas like (...) emergence and downward causation, are congruent with enactivism. Attention to enactivist ideas, moreover, may serve as a heuristic for mechanistic investigations of cognition. Nevertheless, I show how enactivism and approaches that prioritise mechanistic modelling may diverge in starting assumptions about the nature of cognitive phenomena, such as where the constitutive boundaries of cognition lie. (shrink)

Embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended theorists do not typically focus on the ontological frameworks in which they develop their theories. One exception is 4E theories that embrace New Mechanism. In this paper, we endorse the New Mechanist’s general turn to ontology, but argue that their ontology is not the best on the market for 4E theories. Instead, we advocate for a different ontology: causal powers realism. Causal powers realism posits that psychological manifestations are the product of mental powers, and that (...) mental powers are empirically-discoverable features of individuals that account for the causal work those individuals do. We contend that causal powers realism provides a unifying framework for the central commitments of 4E theories, as well as additional resources for theorizing in a 4E framework. And while New Mechanism offers some of these resources as well, we argue that causal powers realism is ultimately the better of the two. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide Humean metaphysics for the interventionist theory of causation. This is done by appealing to the hierarchical picture of causal relations as being realized by mechanisms, which in turn are identified with lower-level causal structures. The modal content of invariances at the lowest level of this hierarchy, at which mechanisms are reduced to strict natural laws, is then explained in terms of projectivism based on the best-system view of laws.

Mechanisms are often characterized as causal structures and the interventionist account of causation is then used to characterize what it is to be a causal structure. The associated modularity constraint on causal structures has evoked criticism against using the theory as an account of mechanisms, since many mechanisms seem to violate modularity. This paper answers to this criticism by making a distinction between a causal system and a causal structure. It makes sense to ask what the modularity properties of a (...) given causal structure are, but not whether a causal system is modular tout court. The counter-examples to the interventionist account are systems in which a particular structure is modular in variables, but not in parameters. A failure of parameter-modularity does not by itself threaten the interventionist interpretation of the structure and the possibility of causally explaining with that structure, but it does mean that knowledge of the structure is not sufficient to constitutively explain system-level properties of the embedding system. (shrink)

Advocates of the New Mechanicism in philosophy of science argue that scientific explanation often consists in describing mechanisms responsible for natural phenomena. Despite its successes, one might think that this approach does not square with the ontological strictures of quantum mechanics. New Mechanists suppose that mechanisms are composed of objects with definite properties, which are interconnected via local causal interactions. Quantum mechanics calls these suppositions into question. Since mechanisms are hierarchical it appears that even macroscopic mechanisms must supervene on a (...) set of “objects” that behave non-classically. In this paper we argue, in part by appeal to the theory of quantum decoherence, that the universal validity of quantum mechanics does not undermine neo-mechanistic ontological and explanatory claims as they occur within in classical domains. Additionally, we argue that by relaxation of certain classical assumptions, mechanistic explanatory strategies can sometimes be carried over into the quantum domain. (shrink)

Large changes of financial market prices without exogenous causes deviate significantly from the Gaussian behavior of random variables. This indicates that financial markets should be treated as complex systems, for which nonlinear interactions of its subunits/agents are crucial. I focus on how the complex systems perspective impacts the notion of explanations in economics. The mechanistic model seems to fit the bill, but problems surface on closer scrutiny. One characteristic of complex systems is that their behavior is surprisingly independent from microscopic (...) details. Thus, mechanistic explanations in the microreductionist manner seem unavailable. Despite these conflicts, I defend a modified structural mechanistic approach. (shrink)

Volume 32, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 69-72.

In contemporary philosophy of science, the consensus view seems to be that scientific explanations describe mechanisms responsible for the phenomena to be explained. Two kinds of explanatory relevance figure in mechanistic accounts of explanation: causal and constitutive. Following prominent accounts, it seems natural to analyze both these relations in terms of systematic interventions into some factor X with respect to another factor Y. However, such interventions are tailored to uncover causal relations only. Construing the constitutive relationship between parts and wholes (...) in terms of interventions thus raises metaphysical, conceptual, and epistemological questions. We here review the barriers that intervention-based inquiry into mechanisms encounters and consider some solutions. (shrink)

The central aim of this article is to specify the ontological nature of constitutive mechanistic phenomena. After identifying three criteria of adequacy that any plausible approach to constitutive mechanistic phenomena must satisfy, we present four different suggestions, found in the mechanistic literature, of what mechanistic phenomena might be. We argue that none of these suggestions meets the criteria of adequacy. According to our analysis, constitutive mechanistic phenomena are best understood as what we will call ‘object-involving occurrents’. Furthermore, on the basis (...) of this notion, we will clarify what distinguishes constitutive mechanistic explanations from etiological ones. 1 Introduction 2 Criteria of Adequacy 2.1 Descriptive adequacy 2.2 Constitutive–etiological distinction 2.3 Constitution 3 The Ontological Nature of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena 3.1 Phenomena as input–output relations 3.2 Phenomena as end states 3.3 Phenomena as dispositions 3.4 Phenomena as behaviours 4 Phenomena as Object-Involving Occurrents 4.1 What object-involving occurrents are and why we need them 4.2 The object in the phenomenon 4.3 The adequacy of option 5 Conclusion. (shrink)

This paper sets out to analyze how causation works by focusing on biology, as represented by epidemiology and by scientific information on how the body works (“physiology”). It starts by exploring the specificity of evolved physiological systems, in which evolutionary, developmental and proximal causes all fit together, and the concept of function is meaningful; in contrast, this structure does not apply in epidemiology (or outside biology). Using these two contrasting branches of biology, I examine the role both of mechanism and (...) of difference making in causation. I find that causation necessarily involves both mechanism and difference making, and that they play complementary roles. Both are seen as ontologically necessary, even if the evidence is not always available for both. Influential monist accounts that focus on one of these, at the expense of ignoring the other, are found to be inadequate on these and on other grounds. Recent attempts to combine them are reviewed, notably that of Russo and Williamson (Int Stud Philos Sci 21:157–170, 2007), and it is argued that their epistemic view requires there to be a source of the different types of evidence that a rational agent would consider, and that this source must be ontic. I then analyze how causal relationships work in evolved physiological systems and in those studied by epidemiology, with a particular focus on how mechanism interacts with input. Finally, I consider this concept of causation from the perspective of everyday language, and of its possible generalisability outside biology. (shrink)