Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Chapter 10 - Methodological Mechanism

  • from Part III - Beyond New Mechanism
  • Stavros Ioannidis, University of Athens, Greece, Stathis Psillos, University of Athens, Greece
  • Book:
    Mechanisms in Science
    Published online:
    09 June 2022
    Print publication:
    23 June 2022, pp 225-246

  • Summary

    Chapter 10 picks up the various threads and defends the main thesis of the book (Methodological Mechanism), namely, the claim that to be committed to mechanism is to adopt a certain methodological postulate, that is, to look for causal pathways for the phenomena of interest. We compare our view of Methodological Mechanism with an important discussion by Joseph Henry Woodger concerning the meaning of mechanism, which has been ignored in current discussions, as well as with the views of Robert Brandon. We then formulate a dilemma that new mechanists face, which arises from the unstable combination of two main tenets of New Mechanism, an ontological and a methodological, both of which depend on the general characterisation of mechanism but that pull in opposite directions. We argue that Causal Mechanism is able to resolve the dilemma, by providing the best defence of the methodological tenet of New Mechanism, while at the same time preventing the adoption of a robust version of the ontological tenet.