Mechanisms in Biology: Constitution vs Causation

In contrast to their counterparts in the 17th century, for advocates of new mechanism, a
mechanistic ontology is essentially anti-reductionist and hierarchical. According to this
widespread ontological view associated with new mechanism, levels of nature typically
invoked in explanations in life sciences are levels of mechanisms. On Craver’s (2007) popular
account, the relation between mechanistic levels is the relation between the mechanism as a
whole and its components; in turn, this relation is considered to be a non-causal dependency
relation, and is to be viewed in terms of mutual manipulability. Craver analyses mutual
manipulability in terms of Woodward’s concept of ideal intervention. So, Craver’s mutual
manipulability account serves both to give an account of the non-causal relations between the
components and the whole mechanism and to ground a hierarchy of mechanistic levels.

In this symposium we will reconsider the view that non-causal constitutive relations are
required to account for at least some instances of mechanisms. Mechanistic constitution has
been viewed as a relation between the mechanism as a whole and its parts, viz., organised
entities and activities. But there has been some disagreement about how to understand
constitution, as well as about what the criteria for constitutive relevance are (cf. Harinen
2014; Romero 2015; Baumgartner & Casini 2017). In particular, while Craver’s well-known
account of constitutive relations in terms of mutual manipulability seems to capture the
practice of inter-level experiments in life sciences, it has recently come under criticism, as it
has been argued that the concept of ideal intervention cannot be applied to constitutive
relations. Moreover, there is currently no consensus among philosophers about how
constitutive explanation has to be characterised. While for Craver constitutive explanation
explains a phenomenon by identifying the mechanism that underlies it, for others constitutive
explanation explains a capacity of a system rather than an activity of the system, and has to be
sharply distinguished from explanations that explain activities (i.e. causal explanations, cf.
Ylikoski 2013). For yet others, constitutive explanation requires positing constitution as an
ontological relation in the world (cf. Gillett & Aizawa 2019).

While philosophers have responded to the problem of how to characterise constitutive

explanation by trying to reconcile interventionism with mechanistic constitution, or by
finding an alternative way to characterise mechanistic constitution, there exists a third, and
more radical, option, which is the aim of this symposium to explore: namely, to reject the view
that constitution is needed to understand the notion of a mechanism. This leads to a
deflationary view of constitutive explanation, as being a certain kind of causal explanation.
The symposium will reexamine the current discussion on constitutive explanation and
mechanistic levels by criticising recent views about constitutive explanation (e.g. Craver
(2007), Ylikoski (2013), Gillett & Aizawa (2019)), mechanistic levels (e.g. Craver & Bechtel’s
(2007) as well as about the existence or not of causation at higher levels (cf. Bechtel (2017)).

Specific biological examples?

Questions to be explored:
-What are the main reasons for introducing constitution in the analysis of mechanism?
-What are the main problems associated with accounting for constitution in terms of
interventionism?
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-How should we understand the relation between mechanisms and the phenomena that they
explain?
-Is there a need to posit a non-causal constitutive relation in the analysis of mechanism?
-Can ‘constitutive’ explanations be viewed as versions of causal explanations?

References

Baumgartner, M. & Casini, L. (2017) ‘An Abductive Theory of Constitution’, Philosophy of

Science 84: 214-233.
Bechtel, W. (2017) ‘Explicating Top-Down Causation Using Networks and Dynamics’,
Philosophy of Science 84: 253-274.
Craver, C. F. (2007) Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Craver, C. F. & Bechtel, W. (2007) ‘Top-down Causation Without Top-down Causes’,
Biology and Philosophy 22: 547-563.
Gillett, C. & Aizawa, K. (2019) ‘Defending Pluralism about Compositional Explanations’,
Studies in History and Philosophy of Biol & Biomed Sciences 78: 101202.
Harinen, T. (2018) ‘Mutual Manipulability and Causal Inbetweenness’, Synthese 195: 35-554.
Romero, F. (2015) ‘Why there isn’t Inter-level Causation in Mechanisms’, Synthese 192: 3731-
3755.
Ylikoski, P. (2013) ‘Causal and Constitutive Explanation Compared’, Erkenntnis 78: 277–97.