Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-rkzlw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-18T22:20:25.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward Mechanism 2.1: A Dynamic Causal Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Wei Fang
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I propose a dynamic causal approach to characterizing the notion of a mechanism. Levy and Bechtel, among others, have pointed out several critical limitations of the new mechanical philosophy and pointed in a new direction to extend this philosophy. Nevertheless, they have not fully fleshed out what that extended philosophy would look like. Given a closer look at neuroscientific practice, I propose that a mechanism is a dynamic causal system that involves various components interacting, typically nonlinearly, with one another to produce a phenomenon of interest.

Information

Type
Causation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , December 2021 , pp. 796 - 809
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bechtel, William. 2006. Discovering Cell Mechanisms: The Creation of Modern Cell Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bechtel, William, and Abrahamsen, Adele. 2010. “Dynamic Mechanistic Explanation: Computational Modeling of Circadian Rhythms as an Exemplar for Cognitive Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 41 (3): 321–33.Google ScholarPubMed
Bechtel, William, and Abrahamsen, Adele. 2013. “”Thinking Dynamically about Biological Mechanisms: Networks of Coupled Oscillators.” Foundations of Science 18 (4): 707–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, William, and Richardson, Robert. 1993. Discovering Complexity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Boogerd, Fred, Bruggeman, Frank, and Richardson, Robert. 2013. “Mechanistic Explanations and Models in Molecular Systems Biology.” Foundations of Science 18 (4): 725–44.10.1007/s10699-012-9302-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brigandt, Ingo. 2013. “Systems Biology and the Integration of Mechanistic Explanation and Mathematical Explanation.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science C 44 (4): 477–92.Google Scholar
Casini, Lorenzo, Illari, Phyllis McKay, Russo, Federica, and Williamson, Jon. 2011. “Models for Prediction, Explanation and Control: Recursive Bayesian Networks.” Theoria 26 (1): 5–33.Google Scholar
Craver, Carl. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darden, Lindley. 2006. Reasoning in Biological Discoveries: Essays on Mechanisms, Interfield Relations, and Anomaly Resolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fagan, Melinda Bonnie. 2012. “Waddington Redux: Models and Explanation in Stem Cell and Systems Biology.” Biology and Philosophy 27 (2): 179–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friston, Karl. 2009. “Causal Modelling and Brain Connectivity in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” PLoS Biology 7 (2): e1000033.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friston, Karl, Harrison, Lee, and Penny, Will. 2003. “Dynamic Causal Modelling.” Neuroimage 19 (4): 1273–302.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gebharter, Alexander. 2014. “A Formal Framework for Representing Mechanisms?” Philosophy of Science 81 (1): 138–53.10.1086/674206CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gebharter, Alexander, and Kaiser, Marie. 2014. “Causal Graphs and Biological Mechanisms.” In Explanation in the Special Sciences, ed. Kaiser, Marie, Scholz, Oliver, Plenge, Daniel, and Huttemann, Andreas, 55–85. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-94-007-7563-3_3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glennan, Stuart. 2002. “Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 69 (S3): S342–S353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Sara, Fagan, Melinda, and Jaeger, Johannes. 2015. “Explanatory Integration Challenges in Evolutionary Systems Biology.” Biological Theory 10 (1): 18–35.10.1007/s13752-014-0185-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, David, and Bechtel, William. 2011. “Dynamical Models: An Alternative or Complement to Mechanistic Explanations.” Topics in Cognitive Science 3:438–44.10.1111/j.1756-8765.2011.01147.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, David, and Craver, Carl. 2011. “The Explanatory Force of Dynamical and Mathematical Models in Neuroscience: A Mechanistic Perspective.” Philosophy of Science 78 (4): 601–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Arnon, and Bechtel, William. 2013. “Abstraction and the Organization of Mechanisms.” Philosophy of Science 80 (2): 241–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Arnon, and Bechtel, William. 2016. “Towards Mechanism 2.0: Expanding the Scope of Mechanistic Explanation.” PhilSci Archive. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/12567/.Google Scholar
Machamer, Peter, Darden, Lindley, and Craver, Carl. 2000. “Thinking about Mechanisms.” Philosophy of Science 67 (1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthiessen, Dana. 2017. “Mechanistic Explanation in Systems Biology: Cellular Networks.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearl, Judea. 2009. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubenstein, Paul, Bongers, Stephan, Schölkopf, Bernhard, and Mooij, Joris. 2016. “From Deterministic ODEs to Dynamic Structural Causal Models.” ArXiv. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.08028.pdf.Google Scholar
Spirtes, Peter, Glymour, Clark, and Scheines, Richard. 2000. Causation, Prediction, and Search. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stephan, Klaas, Harrison, Lee, Kiebel, Stefan, David, Olivier, Penny, Will, and Friston, Karl. 2007. “Dynamic Causal Models of Neural System Dynamics: Current State and Future Extensions.” Journal of Biosciences 32 (1): 129–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Svoronos, Spyros, Stephanopoulos, George, and Aris, Rutherford. 1980. “Bilinear Approximation of General Non-linear Dynamic Systems with Linear Inputs.” International Journal of Control 31 (1): 109–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar