Abstract
The notion of a phenomenon plays a crucial role in the new mechanistic thinking. But what are mechanistic phenomena? In this chapter, I discuss and reject a view that is common in the new mechanistic literature: the view that constitutive mechanistic phenomena are capacities. My argument, roughly, is that this view is incompatible with the metaphysics of EA-mechanisms as described in the previous chapters. An alternative view that can be found in the new mechanistic literature, and that is prima facie compatible with the metaphysics of EA-mechanisms, is the view that constitutive mechanistic phenomena are behaving systems. I will present two interpretations of this claim: according to what I will call the functionalist view, constitutive mechanistic phenomena are behaviors of mechanisms characterized by input–output relations. According to what I will call the behaving entity view, constitutive mechanistic phenomena are higher-level entities that contain mechanisms that are engaged in an occurrent (as defined in Chap. 4). I will argue that the functionalist view is flawed since it conflicts with the general aims of the new mechanists, such as defending the autonomy of the special sciences (see Introduction), and defending a specific notion of levels of nature (see Chap. 5). I will show that the behaving entity view is compatible with these general goals. Hence, I will conclude, constitutive mechanistic phenomena, like etiological mechanistic phenomena, are EIOs.
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Notes
- 1.
As argued before, some authors adopt a strong ontic view of explanation, according to which phenomena are explananda, and hence explananda exist mind-independently. As argued in the introduction, I adopt a weak ontic view, according to which explananda are descriptions that refer to phenomena.
- 2.
Indeed, at this point it is unclear whether Bechtel takes his opponents to argue that his view of levels implies a reductionist view with regard to levels (i.e., an identity between the levels) or an epiphenomenalism with regard to higher-level phenomena. Epiphenomenalism implies a non-reductionist claim with regard to higher-level phenomena (i.e., they are not identical with lower-level phenomena) but implies that, due to this irreducibility, the higher-level phenomena are causally inert. A reductionist view with regard to higher levels implies that higher-level phenomena are causally efficacious but only due to their being identical with lower-level phenomena.
- 3.
- 4.
Note that constitutive mechanistic phenomena can be simple (like a muscle contracting) or complex (protein-protein binding or osmosis) EIOs. In line with the considerations made in Chap. 4, complex phenomenon-EIOs contain mechanisms in the sense that all entity-components of the mechanism are parts of one of the entities that participates in the phenomenon EIO. All occurrent-components of the mechanism occur during the occurrence of the complex phenomenon-EIO.
- 5.
- 6.
The term was introduced by the physicist Percy Bridgman (1882–1961), claiming that “in general, we mean by a concept nothing more than a set of operations; the concept is synonymous with the corresponding sets of operations” (Bridgman 1927, 5). Here, I use the notion of operationalization in its methodological reading, according to which operationalizations are definitions of concepts that are “either temporary assumptions about typical empirical indicators of a given subject matter, which allow[s] researchers to get empirical investigations ‘off the ground’, or they [are] presentations of the outcomes of experiments, which [are] assumed to individuate a given phenomenon particularly well” (Feest 2005, 134).
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Krickel, B. (2018). Mechanistic Phenomena. In: The Mechanical World. Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03629-4_6
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