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        Mechanisms are Real and Local

        Author
        Illari, Phyllis McKay
        Williamson, Jon
        Attention
        2299/8029
        Abstract
        Mechanisms have become much-discussed, yet there is still no consensus on how to characterise them. In this paper, we start with something everyone is agreed on – that mechanisms explain – and investigate what constraints this imposes on our metaphysics of mechanisms. We examine two widely shared premises about how to understand mechanistic explanation: (1) that mechanistic explanation offers a welcome alternative to traditional laws-based explanation and (2) that there are two senses of mechanistic explanation that we call ‘epistemic explanation’ and ‘physical explanation’. We argue that mechanistic explanation requires that mechanisms are both real and local. We then go on to argue that real, local mechanisms require a broadly active metaphysics for mechanisms, such as a capacities metaphysics.
        Publication date
        2011
        Published in
        Causality in the Sciences
        Other links
        http://hdl.handle.net/2299/8029
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