Activities and Causation
The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Mechanisms
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23324850 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Machamer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 27-39 |
| Publication date | 2004-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Studies in the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0269-8595 • E-ISSN: 1469-9281 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02698590412331289242 |
| OpenAlex | W2093918078 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 71 |
| References cited | 11 |
This article deals with mechanisms conceived as composed of entities and activities. In response to many perplexities about the nature of activities, a number of arguments are developed concerning their epistemic and ontological status. Some questions concerning the relations between cause and causal explanation and mechanisms are also addressed.
Causation · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Philosophy of science · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science
Mechanistic Theories of Causality Part I
Causal Webs in Epidemiology
Mechanisms meet structural explanation
Thinking Again about Biological Mechanisms
Phenomenological Laws and Mechanistic Explanations
Synthesizing Activities and Interactions in the Concept of a Mechanism
Constraints on Localization and Decomposition as Explanatory Strategies in the Biological Sciences
Dispositionalism and the Metaphysics of Science
Causal Mechanisms
What is a mechanism? Thinking about mechanisms across the sciences
Aristotle on the Emergence of Material Complexity
The Great Divides
Are National Platforms Appropriate Vehicles To Tackle Match-fixing? A Process Tracing Study in Six Countries
Exit Staged Right? Understanding Founder Imprints and Strategy Effects on the Sale and Transfer of a Hybrid Social Enterprise
An explanatory taste for mechanisms
A design science research approach to closing the gap between the research and practice of project scheduling
Preservice science teachers’ epistemological framing in their early teaching
Examining Part–Part Interactions Toward Improving Mechanistic Explanations in Cell Biology
Pluralistic and Monistic Tendencies in the Life Sciences
The Object-Activity Theory of Events
The Ups and Downs of Mechanism Realism
Conservative solutions for progress
Reconsidering mechanisms in social science research
Identifying causal mechanisms of unexpected policy change
Roadblocks of polarization
Causal claims and causal explanation in international studies
The concept of mechanism in biology
Data graphs and mechanistic explanation
Intervention, causal reasoning, and the neurobiology of mental disorders
Natural selection and mechanistic regularity
A weakened mechanism is still a mechanism
Development and mechanistic explanation
Mechanisms, determination and the metaphysics of neuroscience
The Russo–Williamson Theses in the social sciences
Function and organization
On closing the gap between philosophical concepts and their usage in scientific practice
The contribution of process tracing to theory-based evaluations of complex aid instruments
It's all about mechanisms – what process-tracing case studies should be tracing
Evidential Pluralism, Causal Pluralism, and an Integrative Theory of Causation
The mechanical philosophy, mechanisms, and values
Pfade, Mechanismen, Ereignisse. Zur gegenwärtigen Forschungslage in der Soziologie sozialer Prozesse
Natural kinds, psychiatric classification and the history of the DSM
The Mind as Neural Software? Understanding Functionalism, Computationalism, and Computational Functionalism
Multi-Method Research in the Social Sciences
The hybrid account of activities
Mechanistic and topological explanations in medicine
Active biological mechanisms
From interventions to mechanistic explanations
Mechanistic explanation at the limit
Models and mechanisms in psychological explanation
Evidential pluralism and evidence of mechanisms in the social sciences
The case for regularity in mechanistic causal explanation
A prototypical conceptualization of mechanisms
Real Patterns in Biological Explanation
Against Regular and Irregular Characterizations of Mechanisms
Can Mechanisms Really Replace Laws of Nature
Mechanisms, Laws, and Regularities
What’s the Point of Ceteris Paribus? or, How to Understand Supply and Demand Curves
Status Attainment and Social Mobility
Explication et pertinence
Explaining Mechanism–Task Fit in Neuroscience
The Metaphysics of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena
A Regularist Approach to Mechanistic Type-Level Explanation
Mechanistic Causation and Constraints
Meaning and Modularity
Case Studies Nested in Fuzzy-set QCA on Sufficiency
Comparative Hypothesis Testing Via Process Tracing
Selecting Appropriate Cases When Tracing Causal Mechanisms
Achieving Methodological Alignment When Combining QCA and Process tracing in Practice
A Unifying Framework for Causal Analysis in Set-Theoretic Multimethod Research
Mechanistic Theories of Causality Part II
First Verbs
Perceptual causality and animacy
The Child's Conception of Physical Causality
Strategies in the interfield discovery of the mechanism of protein synthesis
What Is a Mechanism? A Counterfactual Account
Strategies for Discovering Mechanisms
Causation by Disconnection
Thinking about Mechanisms
Interlevel Experiments and Multilevel Mechanisms in the Neuroscience of Memory
Probability and Induction
| Unique citing works | 71 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,23 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2026 (23) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 64 |