Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T19:51:55.512Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Completeness of Mechanistic Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Tudor M. Baetu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The paper discusses methodological guidelines for evaluating mechanistic explanations. According to current accounts, a satisfactory mechanistic explanation should include all of the relevant features of the mechanism, its component entities and activities, and their properties and organization, as well as exhibit productive continuity. It is not specified, however, how this kind of mechanistic completeness can be demonstrated. I argue that parameter sufficiency inferences based on mathematical model simulations provide a way of determining whether a mechanism capable of producing the phenomenon of interest can be constructed from mechanistic components organized, acting, and having the properties described in the mechanistic explanation.

Type
Explanation and Mechanisms
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 775 - 786
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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.)

Footnotes

†

This work was supported in part by a generous fellowship from the KLI Institute. I thank Stuart Glennan, Mathieu Charbonneau, Dan Nicholson, Maarten Boudry, Argyris Arnellos, Laura Nuño de la Rosa, and Michael Rammerstorfer for their much-appreciated input.

References

Baetu, T. M. 2012. “Filling in the Mechanistic Details: Two-Variable Experiments as Tests for Constitutive Relevance.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (3): 337–53.10.1007/s13194-011-0045-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baetu, T. M. 2013. “Chance, Experimental Reproducibility, and Mechanistic Regularity.” International Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 27 (3): 255–73.Google Scholar
Baetu, T. M. 2015. “From Mechanisms to Mathematical Models and Back to Mechanisms: Quantitative Mechanistic Explanations.” In Explanation in Biology: An Enquiry into the Diversity of Explanatory Patterns in the Life Sciences, ed. Braillard, P.-A. and Malaterre, C.. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Bechtel, W., and Abrahamsen, A.. 2010. “Dynamic Mechanistic Explanation: Computational Modeling of Circadian Rhythms as an Exemplar for Cognitive Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 41:321–33.10.1016/j.shpsa.2010.07.003CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechtel, W., and Richardson, R.. 2010. Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/8328.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, C. 2001. “Role Functions, Mechanisms, and Hierarchy.” Philosophy of Science 68:53–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, C. 2006. “When Mechanistic Models Explain.” Synthese 153:355–76.10.1007/s11229-006-9097-xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, C. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, C., and Darden, L.. 2013. In Search of Biological Mechanisms: Discoveries across the Life Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226039824.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darden, L. 2006. Reasoning in Biological Discoveries: Essays on Mechanisms, Interfield Relations, and Anomaly Resolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elowitz, M., and Leibler, S.. 2000. “Synthetic Gene Oscillatory Network of Transcriptional Regulators.” Nature 403:335–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hartwell, L. H., Hopfield, J. J., Leibler, S., and Murray, A. W.. 1999. “From Molecular to Modular Cell Biology.” Nature 402 (6761 Supp.): C47–52.10.1038/35011540CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoffmann, A., Levchenko, A., Scott, M., and Baltimore, D.. 2002. “The I κB–NF-κB Signaling Module: Temporal Control and Selective Gene Activation.” Science 298:1241–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machamer, P., Darden, L., and Craver, C.. 2000. “Thinking about Mechanisms.” Philosophy of Science 67:1–25.10.1086/392759CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morange, M. 2009. “Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Functional and Evolutionary Biology.” Biological Theory 4 (4): 368–77.10.1162/BIOT_a_00003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morowitz, H. 1984. “The Completeness of Molecular Biology.” Israel Journal of Medical Sciences 20:750–53.Google ScholarPubMed
Ting, A. Y., and Endy, D.. 2002. “Decoding NF-κB Signaling.” Science 298:1189–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodward, J. 2002. “What Is a Mechanism? A Counterfactual Account.” Philosophy of Science 69(Proceedings): S366–S377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar