Article contents
Mechanisms, Types, and Abstractions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Abstract
Machamer, Darden, and Craver's account of the nature and role of mechanisms in the special sciences has been very influential. Unfortunately, a confusing array of ontic, epistemic, and pragmatic distinctions is required to individuate their mechanisms, mechanism schemata, and mechanism sketches. I diagnose this as a conflation of token-level causal relations with type-level relations. I propose instead that a mechanism is an abstraction that relates entity types and activity types on the model of a directed graph. Mechanisms have an ontic status distinct from the causal chains of token entities and token activities that instantiate them.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association
Footnotes
This research was supported by doctoral funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by the Rotman Institute of Philosophy.
References
- 5
- Cited by