Abstract
This paper presents a new account of unifying explanation, which differs from Kitcher’s explanatory unification in a number of ways. Kitcher’s account preserves much of the covering-law model, identifying explanation with subsumption of many diverse phenomena under a general argument pattern. Many scientific explanations, however, fit neither the unification nor covering-law accounts. An important variety of these, mechanistic explanations in biology, has received considerable philosophical attention. I argue that important examples of mechanistic explanation in biology are also unifying explanations – in a sense different than Kitcher’s. Using the example of the operon, a seminal explanation of molecular biology, I show that some mechanistic models describe combining relations that unify lower-level parts in the sense of connecting them into a new, complex whole (commonsense unification). In describing how lower-level components are unified in this commonsense way, models like the operon thereby unify higher- and lower-level descriptions of the phenomenon to be explained (perspectival unification). The last sections discuss how unifying multi-level explanations can yield understanding, in an epistemically interesting sense, and show that this new account helps resolve recent debates about explanation in Systems Biology.
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Notes
- 1.
This paper extends and develops material in Fagan (2015).
- 2.
Causal claims, on Kitcher’s view, are grounded “in claims about explanatory dependency,” rather than the reverse (1989, 436).
- 3.
But see Fry (2016) for a recent defense of unificationism against Woodward’s objections.
- 4.
- 5.
See Fagan (2015) for discussion of contrasts between these and other recent definitions of ‘mechanism.’
- 6.
E.g., Ross (2015).
- 7.
I return to this ‘recursive’ aspect of multi-level explanations in the next Sect. 12.4.1. Note that this is not the same as a “nested” mechanistic hierarchy: both the parts of the operon and the operon itself are components in the overall mechanism of regulation of gene expression. Rather, the relation between the operon and (some) other molecular parts is the same as that between all the components and the overall system: constitution.
- 8.
Reflexivity doesn’t distinguish the relations. An object or process is not a cause of itself; causes are distinct from their effects. Likewise, a (token) object or process doesn’t combine with itself; combining ‘partners’ are distinct (or at least, we can conceptually distinguish them). Transitivity of causation is a contentious issue; combining is, at first glance, non-transitive.
- 9.
Another way to put the point is that binding relations are themselves complex, comprised of a relation between X and Y, and another relation (dependent on the first) between X-and-Y together and complex Z.
- 10.
The ‘complex-forming’ relation might be thought of as causal, since values of X and Y do make a difference to values of Z (notably, its presence or absence). The combination of X and Y (or any number of components) has a result: the higher-level complex Z, of which X and Y are parts. Fagan (2016) rebuts this argument in detail for the operon case.
- 11.
The quoted passage is paraphrased from the OED, online edition.
- 12.
Another way to put the point is that the constitution relation is an extension (or an elaboration) of the combining relation. This helps integrate the non-causal aspects of mechanistic explanation illustrated in the operon case (see Sect. 12.3).
- 13.
It is important to distinguish this claim from another related one: multiple representations that are each about a different part (e.g., x1, x2, x3) of some overall system S. The latter claim comports well with a New Mechanist approach, presupposing an arrangement of parts and a part-whole hierarchy. The claim made above does not include this presupposition. Rather, part-whole (more accurately, constitution) relations are one way to perspectivally unify different descriptions of the object of inquiry. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this point to my attention.
- 14.
In molecular biology a few combining relations (complementary molecular geometry and electrochemical charge) recur within and across mechanistic explanations, conferring generality and simplicity of a sort on mechanistic explanations in this field. In this way, traditional explanatory unification (iii) is also implicated in (some) mechanistic explanations.
- 15.
The non-reductive character of mechanistic explanation in biology is well-established, at least for many cases like the operon.
- 16.
See also Zednik (2015).
- 17.
Issad and Malaterre propose a more general type of explanation (“Causally Interpreted Model Explanations”) of which mechanistic and Systems Biology explanations are different varieties.
- 18.
More precisely, extensive argument is needed to show that the dependency relations linking system-level phenomena to components in Systems Biology models are causal in some accepted sense of the term. Detailed examination of this issue is a task for another paper.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Editors Jan-Willem Romeijn, Gerhard Schurz and Michela Massimi, for the opportunity to contribute to the EPSA2015 Conference Proceedings. This paper has benefited from comments by Hanne Andersen, Carl Craver, Carrie Figdor, Sara Green, Matt Haber, Elijah Millgram, Joe Rouse, and Miriam Thalos, and from participants at the EPSA session at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany (September 26, 2015). Funding was provided by the Humanities Research Center at Rice University, the Mosle Research Foundation, the University of Utah College of Humanities, a Scholar’s Award from the National Science Foundation (Award No. 1354515), and the generous support of the estate of Sterling M. McMurrin.
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Fagan, M.B. (2017). Explanation, Unification, and Mechanisms. In: Massimi, M., Romeijn, JW., Schurz, G. (eds) EPSA15 Selected Papers. European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53730-6_12
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