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What is a mechanism? Thinking about mechanisms across the sciences

  • Original paper in Metaphysics of Science
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Abstract

After a decade of intense debate about mechanisms, there is still no consensus characterization. In this paper we argue for a characterization that applies widely to mechanisms across the sciences. We examine and defend our disagreements with the major current contenders for characterizations of mechanisms. Ultimately, we indicate that the major contenders can all sign up to our characterization.

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Notes

  1. We lack space to discuss the work of everyone in the debate in detail, but we will also make some comments on the work of Tabery, Torres, and Woodward on the way through the paper.

  2. For this reason, we do not adopt Torres (2009, p247). At ‘Mechanisms and Causality’ conference, Kent, 2009, Glennan clearly withdrew ‘complex’ from his characterization.

  3. At least partially. There seem to be other ways to individuate mechanisms that produce the same phenomenon, such as in terms of the entities or activities involved, and an examination of whether such ways can always be explained away in terms of functional individuation is a complex issue we reserve for further work. At ‘Mechanisms and Causality’ conference, Kent 2009, both Darden and Craver called the functional individuation of mechanisms ‘Glennan’s Law’, as he was the first to recognise this (see for example his 1996).

  4. Mechanisms are individuated by their phenomena, and phenomena are also individuated by their mechanisms. This is not circular, because it happens iteratively over time. At the beginning, a mechanism is not needed to individuate a phenomenon, but the characterization of the phenomenon may be further refined when a mechanism or mechanisms are discovered. See Darden 2008 p960.

  5. We reject Tabery’s ‘interactivity’ because it also requires change (Tabery 2004 p12). But see Tabery (2009) on using mechanisms to explain difference, rather than similarity.

  6. As Tabery 2004 notes. We thank Glennan for pressing us on this point.

  7. We have compared organization in natural selection, and in protein synthesis in Illari and Williamson (2010).

  8. We thank Erik Weber for suggesting this example.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the Leverhulme Trust for supporting this research. We are also indebted to colleagues at Kent and in the Causality in the Sciences network for discussion of many of these issues. The work has been significantly improved due to detailed comments from Stuart Glennan, Federica Russo and two anonymous referees. Remaining errors are, of course, our own.

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  1. Philosophy Department, University of Kent, Canterbury Kent, CT2 7NZ, UK

    Phyllis McKay Illari & Jon Williamson

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  1. Phyllis McKay Illari
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Correspondence to Phyllis McKay Illari.

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Illari, P.M., Williamson, J. What is a mechanism? Thinking about mechanisms across the sciences. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 2, 119–135 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-011-0038-2

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