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What Is a Mechanism? A Counterfactual Account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jim Woodward
Jim Woodward*
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology
*
Send requests for reprints to the author, Humanities & Social Sciences, H&SS, 101–40, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125; jfw@hss.caltech.edu.
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Abstract

This paper presents a counterfactual account of what a mechanism is. Mechanisms consist of parts, the behavior of which conforms to generalizations that are invariant under interventions, and which are modular in the sense that it is possible in principle to change the behavior of one part independently of the others. Each of these features can be captured by the truth of certain counterfactuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 69 , Issue S3 , September 2002 , pp. S366 - S377
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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