Mechanisms and the Metaphysics of Causation

1. Mechanisms and the Metaphysics of Causation • Peter Fazekas • School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh • Gergely Kertész • Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics

2. Intro • Mechanistic approach • Ontological aspect • Epistemological (explanatory) aspect • Focus: ontological aspect • Target: Bill Bechtel (2008)

3. Mechanistic explanation SΨ-ing X4Φ4-ing X2Φ2-ing X5Φ5-ing X3Φ3-ing X1Φ1-ing P1ρ1-ing P3ρ3-ing P2ρ2-ing

4. What happens in mechanistic explanation • The grasping of a phenomenon through its causal/ functional role • Decomposition: the finding of relevant parts and their organisation. • Mechanistic explanations explain how a mechanism as a whole can do what it does by showing how the constituent parts such organised can do together what the mechanism as a whole does. • Identification of the activity of the parts with the activity of the higher level phenomenon.

5. Mechanistic explanation Level +1 S X Φ-ing Level 0 X P1ρ1-ing P3ρ3-ing P2ρ2-ing Level -1

6. Causation at different levels SΨ-ing X4Φ4-ing X2Φ2-ing X5Φ5-ing X3Φ3-ing X1Φ1-ing P1ρ1-ing P3ρ3-ing P2ρ2-ing

7. Levels and terminology • “the working parts of a mechanism do different things than does the whole mechanism” (Bechtel, 2008, p.146.) • “different vocabulary is required to describe the operations of the partsof the mechanism from that used to describe the activity of the wholemechanism” (Bechtel, 2008, p.146.)

8. „Bridge laws” in the case of mechanisms • ‘‘individual lower-level components do not explain the overall performance of the mechanism. ... Only the mechanism as a whole is capable of generating the phenomenon, and then only under appropriate conditions. Herein lies the explanation for the need for bridge principles in the theory-reduction account—different vocabulary is needed to describe what the parts of a mechanism do than is required to describe what the mechanism as a whole does. The appropriate bridge in this case, however, is not a set of translation rules, but an account of how the operations of the parts of the mechanism are organizedso as to yield the behavior of the whole mechanism” (Bechtel & Hamilton, 2007, p.25, emphasis added)

9. Identity and autonomy • “In this sketch of events involved in remembering a lecture, I twicestepped down levels by appealing to an identitybetween the effect ona system and a change in constituents of the system. At the lower levelthe causal story was an ordinary causal one. Then I stepped up a levelby appealing to an identitybetween the new operations within themechanism and the way it behaved as a whole. At the level of thewhole the story was again an ordinary causal one.” (Bechtel,2008, pp.154-155, emphases added) • “And insofar as that non-functioning constitutes the general’s death, weexplain her death. Notice that when we reach the state of themechanism that constitutes the state of death, we do not say, with BettyCrocker, that it causes death. It just is death.” (Craver andBechtel, 2007, p.557, emphases added)

10. Arguments for autonomy • “Although mechanistic explanation is reductive insofar as it appeals to the componenet parts and operations within a mechanism to explain the behavior of the mechanism, the reductive aspect alone is insufficient to explain the behavior of the mechanism. • The parts of a whole behave in a particular way because of how they are organized in the mechanism. Information about how the parts are organized goes beyond the account of the parts and their operations. • Moreover, the mechanism interacts causally with other entities. These interactions provide the input and set the conditions for the mechanism and information about them is not part of the reductive account charcterizing the parts and operations within the mechanism. Securing information about both the organisation within the mechanism and the relations between the mechanism and its environment requires going beyond the reductive aspect of mechanistic explanation and incorporating the ,results of other, autonomous inquiries.” (Bechtel, 2007, emphases added)

11. Information about organisation SΨ-ing X4Φ4-ing X2Φ2-ing X5Φ5-ing X3Φ3-ing X1Φ1-ing P1ρ1-ing P3ρ3-ing P2ρ2-ing

12. Information about organisation • Can a full-blown lower level account capture organisational facts? • Accounting for organisation requiers information about: • Entities • Activities • Spatiotemporal cordinates • Dynamical couplings • All of these are accessible at the lower level.

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14. Moral • Autonomy as the simple need for higher levels: • True. • Too weak to be interesting. • Autonomy as special authority of higher levels: • Interesting enough. • False.

15. Thank you for your attention!