Mechanistic Explanations

Last update: 21 Apr 2025 21:17
First version:

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Yet another inadequate placeholder, for a topic somewhere at the border of philosophy of science, methodology (especially social-scientific methodology) and causality.

Recommended, bigger picture:
• Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity
• Jon Elster
  • Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences
  • "A Plea for Mechanisms", in Hedstrom and Swedberg (below)
• Peter Hedstrom, Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology
• Peter Hedstrom and Richard Swedberg (eds.), Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory
• Wesley Salmon, Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World
• Charles Tilly
  • Many of Tilly's methodological papers are available online
  • Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons
  • Explaining Social Processes

Recommended, close-ups:
• Domenico Bertoloni Meli, Mechanism: A Visual, Lexical, and Conceptual History
• Peter Dorman, "What would a scientific economics look like?", Real-world Economics Review 47 (2008): 166--172
• James A. Overton, "Mechanisms, Types, and Abstractions", Philosophy of Science 78 (2011): 941--954
• Wesley C. Salmon, with Richard C. Jeffrey and James G. Greeno, Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance

OK but not fully recommended:
• Arnon Levy and William Bechtel, "Abstraction and the Organization of Mechanisms", Philosophy of Science 80 (2013): 241--261[Sentences I never thought I'd write: This paper from Philosophy of Science seems distinctly redundant given the works of Manuel DeLanda.]

To read:
• Holly Andersen, "The Case of Regularity in Mechanistic Causal Explanation", phil-sci/8505
• William Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms: The Creation of Modern Cell Biology
• Carl F. Craver, Explaining the Brain
• Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden, In Search of Mechanisms: Discoveries Across the Life Sciences
• Melinda Bonnie Fagan, "The Joint Account of Mechanistic Explanation", Philosophy of Science 79 (2012): 448--472
• Stuart Glennan, The New Mechanical Philosophy
• Neil Gross, "Charles Tilly and American Pragmatism", The American Sociologist 41 (2010): 337--357
• Meinard Kuhlmann, "Mechanisms in Dynamically Complex Systems", phil-sci/8442
• T. Lombrozo, "Causal-explanatory pluralism: How intentions, functions, and mechanisms influence causal ascriptions", Cognitive Psychology 61 (2010): 303--332
• Peter Machamer, "Mechanisms: Ontology, Representation, and Pyschology", phil-sci/8526
• Dan Sperber, "A naturalistic ontology for mechanistic explanations in the social sciences" [online]
• Arthur Stinchcombe, "The Conditions of Fruitfulness of Theorizing About Mechanisms in Social Science", Philosophy of Social Science 21 (1991): 367--388
• Catherine E. Stinson, Cognitive Mechanisms and Computational Models: Explanation in Cognitive Neuroscience [Ph.D. Thesis, Philosophy Dept., University of Pittsburgh, 2013; thanks to Dr. Stinson for a copy]
• Michael Strevens, Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation
• Charles Tilly, "Mechanisms and Political Processes", Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001)
• Jonathan Waksan, "Intelligibility and the CAPE: Combatting Anti-psychologism about Explanation", phil-sci/8503