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Can Mechanisms Really Replace Laws of Nature?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Bert Leuridan
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Abstract

Today, mechanisms and mechanistic explanation are very popular in philosophy of science and are deemed a welcome alternative to laws of nature and deductive-nomological explanation. Starting from Mitchell's pragmatic notion of laws, I cast doubt on their status as a genuine alternative. I argue that (1) all complex-systems mechanisms ontologically must rely on stable regularities, while (2) the reverse need not hold. Analogously, (3) models of mechanisms must incorporate pragmatic laws, while (4) such laws themselves need not always refer to underlying mechanisms. Finally, I show that Mitchell's account is more encompassing than the mechanistic account.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 317 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank the following people (in alphabetical order) for their helpful comments and criticisms: Leen De Vreese, Isabelle Drouet, Phyllis McKay Illari, Joke Meheus, Sandy Mitchell, Federica Russo, Maarten Van Dyck, Erik Weber, Marcel Weber, and Jon Williamson, as well as three anonymous referees. The author is Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation—Flanders (FWO).

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