Three Problems for the Mutual Manipulability Account of Constitutive Relevance in Mechanisms
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8397484 |
|---|---|
| Authors | B Leuridan (0000-0001-5962-5652, Ghent University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 399-427 |
| Publication date | 2012-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/bjps/axr036 |
| OpenAlex | W2102278232 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 41 |
| References cited | 31 |
In this article, I present two conceptual problems for Craver's mutual manipulability account of constitutive relevance in mechanisms. First, constitutive relevance threatens to imply causal relevance despite Craver (and Bechtel)'s claim that they are strictly distinct. Second, if (as is intuitively appealing) parthood is defined in terms of spatio-temporal inclusion, then the mutual manipulability account is prone to counterexamples, as I show by a case of endosymbiosis. I also present a methodological problem (a case of experimental underdetermination) and formulate two partial, but fallible solutions based on the notions of parthood and synchronicity. 1 Introduction 2 Mechanisms 3 Intralevel Causal Relations and Invariance 4 Interlevel Constitutive Relations and Mutual Manipulability 5 Doesn't Constitutive Relevance Entail Causal Relevance? 6 Parthood and Endosymbiosis 7 Possible Ways Out 8 Interlevel Experiments 9 The Problem of Underdetermination 10 Solving the Problem of Underdetermination: Parthood 11 Synchronicity, the Etiological Nature of Experimental Apparatus, and Causal-Constitutive Propagation 12 Pragmatic Interests and the Boundaries of Mechanisms 13 Concluding Remarks Appendix
Epistemology · Philosophy of science · Relevance (law) · Synchronicity · Underdetermination · Computer Science · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science
How to Model Mechanistic Hierarchies
E Cognition
Extending the Extended Mind
Constitution, Non-Causal Explanation, and Demarcation
Mechanisms of skillful interaction
Constitutivity in Flavour Perception
Causal Proportionality as an Ontic and Epistemic Concept
A Defence of Manipulationist Noncausal Explanation
Flat mechanisms
Plumbing metaphysical explanatory depth
Interventionism and Non-Causal Dependence Relations
Mechanisms, determination and the metaphysics of neuroscience
Pain in psychology, biology and medicine
Inferential explanations in biology
Generative Explanation in Cognitive Science and the Hard Problem of Consciousness
Toward an Enactivist Account of What Constitutes Collective Action
Validating Function-Based Design Methods
Diachronic causal constitutive relations
Constitutive relevance & mutual manipulability revisited
Mental causation, interventionism, and probabilistic supervenience
Why there isn’t inter-level causation in mechanisms
Mutual manipulability and causal inbetweenness
Extended cognition, mutual manipulability, and the relevance of scientific evidence
Manipulation is key
Merleau-Ponty’s implicit critique of the new mechanists
Modelling mechanisms with causal cycles
Anatomy’s role in mechanistic explanations of organism behaviour
Mechanisms without mechanistic explanation
Constitutive relevance in cognitive science
Mechanistic explanation, cognitive systems demarcation, and extended cognition
Integrating mechanistic explanations through epistemic perspectives
A prototypical conceptualization of mechanisms
The role of orientation experiments in discovering mechanisms
Saving the mutual manipulability account of constitutive relevance
Soft control
An Abductive Theory of Constitution
Constitutive Relevance, Mutual Manipulability, and Fat-Handedness
The Metaphysics of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena
A Causal Bayes Net Analysis of Glennan’s Mechanistic Account of Higher-Level Causation (and Some Consequences)
Constitutive Relevance in Interlevel Experiments
Intervening into mechanisms
Making Things Happen
Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism
The Structure of Objects
Explaining the Brain
Causality
Unsimple Truths
Mechanisms and the nature of causation
Mechanisms and natural kinds
Top-down Causation Without Top-down Causes
Comment On Hausman & Woodward On The Causal Markov Condition
Explanation
Against Modularity, the Causal Markov Condition, and Any Link Between the Two
When mechanistic models explain
What Is a Mechanism? A Counterfactual Account
Can Mechanisms Really Replace Laws of Nature
Thinking about Mechanisms
Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation
Interlevel Experiments and Multilevel Mechanisms in the Neuroscience of Memory
Ecological Explanation between Manipulation and Mechanism Description
Modularity and the Causal Markov Condition
Independence, Invariance and the Causal Markov Condition
| Unique citing works | 41 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,93 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2025 (14) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 40 |