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  1. Mechanistic and non-mechanistic varieties of dynamical models in cognitive science: explanatory power, understanding, and the ‘mere description’ worry.Raoul Gervais - 2015 - Synthese 192 (1):43-66.
    In the literature on dynamical models in cognitive science, two issues have recently caused controversy. First, what is the relation between dynamical and mechanistic models? I will argue that dynamical models can be upgraded to be mechanistic as well, and that there are mechanistic and non-mechanistic dynamical models. Second, there is the issue of explanatory power. Since it is uncontested the mechanistic models can explain, I will focus on the non-mechanistic variety of dynamical models. It is often claimed by proponents (...)
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  • Temporal decomposition: A strategy for building mathematical models of complex metabolic systems.Josephine Donaghy - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 48:1-11.
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  • Constitutive Relevance, Mutual Manipulability, and Fat-Handedness.Michael Baumgartner & Alexander Gebharter - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (3):731-756.
    The first part of this paper argues that if Craver’s ([2007a], [2007b]) popular mutual manipulability account (MM) of mechanistic constitution is embedded within Woodward’s ([2003]) interventionist theory of causation--for which it is explicitly designed--it either undermines the mechanistic research paradigm by entailing that there do not exist relationships of constitutive relevance or it gives rise to the unwanted consequence that constitution is a form of causation. The second part shows how Woodward’s theory can be adapted in such a way that (...)
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  • Chance, Experimental Reproducibility, and Mechanistic Regularity.Tudor M. Baetu - 2013 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (3):253-271.
    Examples from the sciences showing that mechanisms do not always succeed in producing the phenomena for which they are responsible have led some authors to conclude that the regularity requirement can be eliminated from characterizations of mechanisms. In this article, I challenge this conclusion and argue that a minimal form of regularity is inextricably embedded in examples of elucidated mechanisms that have been shown to be causally responsible for phenomena. Examples of mechanistic explanations from the sciences involve mechanisms that have (...)
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  • Mechanistic Explanation versus Deductive-Nomological Explanation.F. Michael Akeroyd - 2008 - Foundations of Chemistry 10 (1):39-48.
    This paper discusses the important paper by Paul Thagard on the pathway version of mechanistic explanation that is currently used in chemical explanation. The author claims that this method of explanation has a respectable pedigree and can be traced back to the Chemical Revolution in the arguments used by the Lavoisier School in their theoretical duels with Richard Kirwan, the proponent of a revised phlogistonian theory. Kirwan believed that complex chemical reactions could be explained by recourse to affinity tables that (...)
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  • The Symbiotic Phenomenon in the Evolutive Context.Francisco Carrapiço - 2012 - In Torres Juan, Pombo Olga, Symons John & Rahman Shahid (eds.), Special sciences and the Unity of Science. Springer. pp. 113--119.
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  • Unity of Science and Pluralism: Cognitive Neurosciences of Racial Prejudice as a Case Study.Luc Faucher - 2012 - In Torres Juan, Pombo Olga, Symons John & Rahman Shahid (eds.), Special sciences and the Unity of Science. Springer. pp. 177--204.
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  • Eschewing Entities: Outlining a Biology Based Form of Structural Realism.Steven French - 2013 - In Vassilios Karakostas & Dennis Dieks (eds.), EPSA11 Perspectives and Foundational Problems in Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer. pp. 371--381.
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  • Scientific w-Explanation as Ampliative, Specialized Embedding: A Neo-Hempelian Account.José Díez - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (S8):1413-1443.
    The goal of this paper is to present and defend an empiricist, neo-Hempelian account of scientific explanation as ampliative, specialized embedding. The proposal aims to preserve what I take to be the core of Hempel’s empiricist account, by weakening it in some respects and strengthening it in others, introducing two new conditions that solve most of Hempel’s problems without abandoning his empiricist strictures. According to this proposal, to explain a phenomenon is to make it expectable by introducing new conceptual/ontological machinery (...)
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  • Building Blocks in Search of a Theory: Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved Frans de Waal Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006 (209 pp; $22.95 hbk; ISBN 0691124477). [REVIEW]Tomislav Bracanović - 2007 - Biological Theory 2 (4):422-424.
    A critical review of Frans de Waal's book on evolution of morality (Frans de Waal, Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).
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  • Naturalizing Theorizing: Beyond a Theory of Biological Theories. [REVIEW]Werner Callebaut - 2013 - Biological Theory 7 (4):413-429.
    Although “theory” has been the prevalent unit of analysis in the meta-study of science throughout most of the twentieth century, the concept remains elusive. I further explore the leitmotiv of several authors in this issue: that we should deal with theorizing (rather than theory) in biology as a cognitive activity that is to be investigated naturalistically. I first contrast how philosophers and biologists have tended to think about theory in the last century or so, and consider recent calls to upgrade (...)
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  • Modelling mechanisms with causal cycles.Brendan Clarke, Bert Leuridan & Jon Williamson - 2014 - Synthese 191 (8):1-31.
    Mechanistic philosophy of science views a large part of scientific activity as engaged in modelling mechanisms. While science textbooks tend to offer qualitative models of mechanisms, there is increasing demand for models from which one can draw quantitative predictions and explanations. Casini et al. (Theoria 26(1):5–33, 2011) put forward the Recursive Bayesian Networks (RBN) formalism as well suited to this end. The RBN formalism is an extension of the standard Bayesian net formalism, an extension that allows for modelling the hierarchical (...)
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  • Seventeenth-Century Mechanism: An Alternative Framework for Reductionism.Kari L. Theurer - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):907-918.
    The current antireductionist consensus rests in part on the indefensibility of the deductive-nomological model of explanation, on which classical reductionism depends. I argue that the DN model is inessential to the reductionist program and that mechanism provides a better framework for thinking about reductionism. This runs counter to the contemporary mechanists’ claim that mechanism is an alternative to reductionism. I demonstrate that mechanists are committed to reductionism, as evidenced by the historical roots of the contemporary mechanist program. This view shares (...)
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  • Towards the Methodological Turn in the Philosophy of Science.Hsiang-Ke Chao, Szu-Ting Chen & Roberta L. Millstein - 2013 - In Hsiang-Ke Chao, Szu-Ting Chen & Roberta L. Millstein (eds.), Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics. Dordrecht: Springer.
    This chapter provides an introduction to the study of the philosophical notions of mechanisms and causality in biology and economics. This chapter sets the stage for this volume, Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics, in three ways. First, it gives a broad review of the recent changes and current state of the study of mechanisms and causality in the philosophy of science. Second, consistent with a recent trend in the philosophy of science to focus on scientific practices, it in (...)
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  • The Concept of Causation in Biology.Michael Joffe - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (2):179-197.
    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 (...)
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  • How Can Causal Explanations Explain?Jon Williamson - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (2):257-275.
    The mechanistic and causal accounts of explanation are often conflated to yield a ‘causal-mechanical’ account. This paper prizes them apart and asks: if the mechanistic account is correct, how can causal explanations be explanatory? The answer to this question varies according to how causality itself is understood. It is argued that difference-making, mechanistic, dualist and inferentialist accounts of causality all struggle to yield explanatory causal explanations, but that an epistemic account of causality is more promising in this regard.
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  • Problems with using mechanisms to solve the problem of extrapolation.Jeremy Howick, Paul Glasziou & Jeffrey K. Aronson - 2013 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34 (4):275-291.
    Proponents of evidence-based medicine and some philosophers of science seem to agree that knowledge of mechanisms can help solve the problem of applying results of controlled studies to target populations (‘the problem of extrapolation’). We describe the problem of extrapolation, characterize mechanisms, and outline how mechanistic knowledge might be used to solve the problem. Our main thesis is that there are four often overlooked problems with using mechanistic knowledge to solve the problem of extrapolation. First, our understanding of mechanisms is (...)
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  • Un análisis crítico de la concepción mecanicista de la explicación.Sergio Daniel Barberis - 2012 - Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofia 38 (2):233-265.
    En este trabajo me propongo desarrollar un estudio crítico de la concepción mecanicista de la explicación científica. En primer lugar, argumento que la caracterización mecanicista de los modelos fenoménicos (no explicativos) es inadecuada, pues no ofrece un análisis aceptable de los conceptos de modelo científico y similitud, que son fundamentales para la propuesta. En segundo lugar, sostengo que la caracterización de los modelos mecanicistas (explicativos) es igualmente inadecuada, pues los análisis disponibles de la relación explicativa de relevancia constitutiva implican una (...)
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  • In Defence of Activities.Phyllis Illari & Jon Williamson - 2013 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 44 (1):69-83.
    In this paper, we examine what is to be said in defence of Machamer, Darden and Craver’s (MDC) controversial dualism about activities and entities (Machamer, Darden and Craver’s in Philos Sci 67:1–25, 2000). We explain why we believe the notion of an activity to be a novel, valuable one, and set about clearing away some initial objections that can lead to its being brushed aside unexamined. We argue that substantive debate about ontology can only be effective when desiderata for an (...)
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  • How to Be a Humean Interventionist.Jaakko Kuorikoski - 2013 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (2):333-351.
    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.
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  • Explanatory power of extended cognition.Samuli Pöyhönen - 2014 - Philosophical Psychology 27 (5):735-759.
    I argue that examining the explanatory power of the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) offers a fruitful approach to the problem of cognitive system demarcation. Although in the discussions on HEC it has become common to refer to considerations of explanatory power as a means for assessing the plausibility of the extended cognition approach, to date no satisfying account of explanatory power has been presented in the literature. I suggest that the currently most prominent theory of explanation in the special (...)
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  • Explanation in Biology: An Enquiry into the Diversity of Explanatory Patterns in the Life Sciences.P.-A. Braillard and C. Malaterre (ed.) - 2015 - Springer.
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  • Mechanisms, Modularity and Constitutive Explanation.Jaakko Kuorikoski - 2012 - Erkenntnis 77 (3):361-380.
    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 (...)
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  • Mechanistic Theories of Causality Part I.Jon Williamson - 2011 - Philosophy Compass 6 (6):421-432.
    Part I of this paper introduces a range of mechanistic theories of causality, including process theories and the complex-systems theories, and some of the problems they face. Part II argues that while there is a decisive case against a purely mechanistic analysis, a viable theory of causality must incorporate mechanisms as an ingredient, and describes one way of providing an analysis of causality which reaps the rewards of the mechanistic approach without succumbing to its pitfalls.
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  • Evidence and the Assessment of Causal Relations in the Health Sciences.Raffaella Campaner & Maria Carla Galavotti - 2012 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 26 (1):27-45.
    This contribution claims that the two fundamental notions of causation at work in the health sciences are manipulative and mechanistic, and investigates what kinds of evidence matter for the assessment of causal relations. This article is a development of our 2007 article, ‘Plurality of Causality’, where we argue for a pluralistic account of causation with an eye to econometrics and a single medical example. The present contribution has a wider focus, and considers the notion of evidence within a whole range (...)
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  • Causation by Concentration.Marco J. Nathan - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (2):191-212.
    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 (...)
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  • Plausibility versus richness in mechanistic models.Raoul Gervais & Erik Weber - 2013 - Philosophical Psychology 26 (1):139-152.
    In this paper we argue that in recent literature on mechanistic explanations, authors tend to conflate two distinct features that mechanistic models can have or fail to have: plausibility and richness. By plausibility, we mean the probability that a model is correct in the assertions it makes regarding the parts and operations of the mechanism, i.e., that the model is correct as a description of the actual mechanism. By richness, we mean the amount of detail the model gives about the (...)
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  • Development and mechanistic explanation.Fabrizzio Mc Manus - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (2):532-541.
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  • Filling in the mechanistic details: two-variable experiments as tests for constitutive relevance. [REVIEW]Tudor M. Baetu - 2012 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (3):337-353.
    This paper provides an account of the experimental conditions required for establishing whether correlating or causally relevant factors are constitutive components of a mechanism connecting input (start) and output (finish) conditions. I argue that two-variable experiments, where both the initial conditions and a component postulated by the mechanism are simultaneously manipulated on an independent basis, are usually required in order to differentiate between correlating or causally relevant factors and constitutively relevant ones. Based on a typical research project molecular biology, a (...)
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  • Against Regular and Irregular Characterizations of Mechanisms.Lane DesAutels - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (5):914-925.
    This article addresses the question of whether we should conceive of mechanisms as productive of change in a regular way. I argue that, if mechanisms are characterized as fully regular, on the one hand, then not enough processes will count as mechanisms for them to be interesting or useful. If no appeal to regularity is made at all in their characterization, on the other hand, then mechanisms can no longer be useful for grounding prediction and supporting intervention strategies. I conclude (...)
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  • Special Issue: Philosophical Considerations in the Teaching of Biology. Part I, Philosophy of Biology and Biological Explanation.Kostas Kampourakis (ed.) - 2013 - Springer (Science & Education).
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  • Negative causation in causal and mechanistic explanation.D. Benjamin Barros - 2013 - Synthese 190 (3):449-469.
    Instances of negative causation—preventions, omissions, and the like—have long created philosophical worries. In this paper, I argue that concerns about negative causation can be addressed in the context of causal explanation generally, and mechanistic explanation specifically. The gravest concern about negative causation is that it exacerbates the problem of causal promiscuity—that is, the problem that arises when a particular account of causation identifies too many causes for a particular effect. In the explanatory context, the problem of promiscuity can be solved (...)
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  • Mechanistic explanation at the limit.Jonathan Waskan - 2011 - Synthese 183 (3):389-408.
    Resurgent interest in both mechanistic and counterfactual theories of explanation has led to a fair amount of discussion regarding the relative merits of these two approaches. James Woodward is currently the pre-eminent counterfactual theorist, and he criticizes the mechanists on the following grounds: Unless mechanists about explanation invoke counterfactuals, they cannot make sense of claims about causal interactions between mechanism parts or of causal explanations put forward absent knowledge of productive mechanisms. He claims that these shortfalls can be offset if (...)
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  • On ‘Stabilising’ medical mechanisms, truth-makers and epistemic causality: a critique to Williamson and Russo’s approach.Stefan Dragulinescu - 2012 - Synthese 187 (2):785-800.
    In this paper I offer an anti-Humean critique to Williamson and Russo’s approach to medical mechanisms. I focus on one of the specific claims made by Williamson and Russo, namely the claim that micro-structural ‘mechanisms’ provide evidence for the stability across populations of causal relationships ascertained at the (macro-) level of (test) populations. This claim is grounded in the epistemic account of causality developed by Williamson, an account which—while not relying exclusively on mechanistic evidence for justifying causal judgements—appeals nevertheless to (...)
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  • Introduction to the Special Issue on Biology and Agriculture.Jonathan Harwood - 2006 - Journal of the History of Biology 39 (2):237 - 239.
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  • Mechanistic models of population-level phenomena.John Matthewson & Brett Calcott - 2011 - Biology and Philosophy 26 (5):737-756.
    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 (...)
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  • From Reactive to Endogenously Active Dynamical Conceptions of the Brain.Adele Abrahamsen & William Bechtel - unknown
    We contrast reactive and endogenously active perspectives on brain activity. Both have been pursued continuously in neurophysiology laboratories since the early 20thcentury, but the endogenous perspective has received relatively little attention until recently. One of the many successes of the reactive perspective was the identification, in the second half of the 20th century, of the distinctive contributions of different brain regions involved in visual processing. The recent prominence of the endogenous perspective is due to new findings of ongoing oscillatory activity (...)
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  • Functional Decomposition: On Rationality and Incommensurability in Engineering.D. Van Eck - unknown
    The concept of technical function is a key concept to describe technical artifacts and artifacts-to-be-designed. Engineers often give such descriptions in terms of functional decomposition models, which represent relationships between functions and sets of other functions. Despite the importance of the concept of function there is no consensus among engineers about its meaning. Models of functional decomposition are likewise conceptually divergent. Although this conceptual diversity hampers information exchange between engineers, they accept and maintain it. Engineers do not, by and large, (...)
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  • Mechanisms and explanatory realization relations.Thomas W. Polger - 2010 - Synthese 177 (2):193 - 212.
    My topic is the confluence of two recently active philosophical research programs. One research program concerns the metaphysics of realization. The other research program concerns scientific explanation in terms of mechanisms. In this paper I introduce a distinction between descriptive and explanatory approaches to realization. I then use this distinction to argue that a well-known account of realization, due to Carl Gillett, is incompatible with a well-known account of mechanistic explanation, due to Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, and Carl Craver (MDC, (...)
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  • Can mechanisms really replace laws of nature?Bert Leuridan - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (3):317-340.
    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 (...)
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  • Ecological explanation between manipulation and mechanism description.Viorel Pâslaru - 2009 - Philosophy of Science 76 (5):821-837.
    James Woodward offers a conception of explanation and mechanism in terms of interventionist counterfactuals. Based on a case from ecology, I show that ecologists’ approach to that case satisfies Woodward’s conditions for explanation and mechanism, but his conception does not fully capture what ecologists view as explanatory. The new mechanistic philosophy likewise aims to describe central aspects of mechanisms, but I show that it is not sufficient to account for ecological mechanisms. I argue that in ecology explanation involves identification of (...)
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  • A Theory of Non-universal Laws.Alexander Reutlinger - 2011 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25 (2):97 - 117.
    Laws in the special sciences are usually regarded to be non-universal. A theory of laws in the special sciences faces two challenges. (I) According to Lange's dilemma, laws in the special sciences are either false or trivially true. (II) They have to meet the ?requirement of relevance?, which is a way to require the non-accidentality of special science laws. I argue that both challenges can be met if one distinguishes four dimensions of (non-) universality. The upshot is that I argue (...)
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  • Generic versus single-case causality: the case of autopsy. [REVIEW]Jon Williamson - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (1):47-69.
    This paper addresses questions about how the levels of causality (generic and single-case causality) are related. One question is epistemological: can relationships at one level be evidence for relationships at the other level? We present three kinds of answer to this question, categorised according to whether inference is top-down, bottom-up, or the levels are independent. A second question is metaphysical: can relationships at one level be reduced to relationships at the other level? We present three kinds of answer to this (...)
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  • Difference mechanisms: Explaining variation with mechanisms.James Tabery - 2009 - Biology and Philosophy 24 (5):645-664.
    Philosophers of science have developed an account of causal-mechanical explanation that captures regularity, but this account neglects variation. In this article I amend the philosophy of mechanisms to capture variation. The task is to explicate the relationship between regular causal mechanisms responsible for individual development and causes of variation responsible for variation in populations. As it turns out, disputes over this relationship have rested at the heart of the nature–nurture debate. Thus, an explication of the relationship between regular causal mechanisms (...)
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  • Knowledge of counterfactual interventions through cognitive models of mechanisms.Jonathan Waskan - 2008 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 22 (3):259 – 275.
    Here I consider the relative merits of two recent models of explanation, James Woodward's interventionist-counterfactual model and the model model. According to the former, explanations are largely constituted by information about the consequences of counterfactual interventions. Problems arise for this approach because countless relevant interventions are possible in most cases and because it overlooks other kinds of equally relevant information. According the model model, explanations are largely constituted by cognitive models of actual mechanisms. On this approach, explanations tend not to (...)
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  • How Digital Computer Simulations Explain Real‐World Processes.Ulrich Krohs - 2008 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 22 (3):277 – 292.
    Scientists of many disciplines use theoretical models to explain and predict the dynamics of the world. They often have to rely on digital computer simulations to draw predictions fromthe model. But to deliver phenomenologically adequate results, simulations deviate from the assumptions of the theoretical model. Therefore the role of simulations in scientific explanation demands itself an explanation. This paper analyzes the relation between real-world system, theoretical model, and simulation. It is argued that simulations do not explain processes in the real (...)
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  • Causal (mis)understanding and the search for scientific explanations: A case study from the history of medicine.Leen De Vreese - 2008 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39 (1):14-24.
    In 1747, James Lind carried out an experiment which proved the usefulness of citrus fruit as a cure for scurvy. Nonetheless, he rejected the earlier hypothesis of Bachstrom that the absence of fresh fruit and vegetables was the only cause of the disease. I explain why it was rational for James Lind not to accept Bachstrom’s explanation. I argue that it was the urge for scientific understanding that guided Lind in his rejection and in the development of his alternative theory (...)
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  • Micro-foundations in strategic management: Squaring coleman’s diagram. [REVIEW]Jack Vromen - 2010 - Erkenntnis 73 (3):365 - 383.
    Abell, Felin and Foss argue that "macro-explanations" in strategic management, explanations in which organizational routines figure prominently and in which both the explanandum and explanans are at the macro-level, are necessarily incomplete. They take a diagram (which has the form of a trapezoid) from Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.)/London, (1990) to task to show that causal chains connecting two macro-phenomena always involve "macro-to-micro" and "micro-tomacro" links, links that macro-explanations allegedly fail to (...)
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  • Machine experiments and theoretical modelling: From cybernetic methodology to neuro-robotics. [REVIEW]Guglielmo Tamburrini & Edoardo Datteri - 2005 - Minds and Machines 15 (3-4):335-358.
    Cybernetics promoted machine-supported investigations of adaptive sensorimotor behaviours observed in biological systems. This methodological approach receives renewed attention in contemporary robotics, cognitive ethology, and the cognitive neurosciences. Its distinctive features concern machine experiments, and their role in testing behavioural models and explanations flowing from them. Cybernetic explanations of behavioural events, regularities, and capacities rely on multiply realizable mechanism schemata, and strike a sensible balance between causal and unifying constraints. The multiple realizability of cybernetic mechanism schemata paves the way to principled (...)
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  • Mechanisms as miracle makers? The rise and inconsistencies of the "mechanismic approach" in social science and history.Zenonas Norkus - 2005 - History and Theory 44 (3):348–372.
    In the increasing body of metatheoretical literature on "causal mechanisms," definitions of "mechanism" proliferate, and these increasingly divergent definitions reproduce older theoretical and methodological oppositions. The reason for this proliferation is the incompatibility of the various metatheoretical expectations directed to them: (1) to serve as an alternative to the scientific theory of individual behavior (for some social theorists, most notably Jon Elster); (2) to provide solutions for causal inference problems in the quantitative social sciences, in social history, and in the (...)
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