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Thinking Again about Biological Mechanisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Lindley Darden
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Abstract

The new research program to understand mechanisms in biology has developed rapidly in the last 10 years. Reconsideration of the characterization of mechanisms in biology in the light of this recent work is now in order. This article discusses the perspectival aspect of the characterization of mechanisms (and ways of mitigating rampant perspectivalism), refinements in claims about working entities and kinds of activities, challenges and responses to claims about regularity, productive continuity, and the organizational aspects of a mechanism, and issues about representations of mechanisms in schemas and sketches.

Type
Mechanisms: Beyond Biology to Psychology and Chemistry
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2006 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Cristina Bicchieri and Jason Alexander , December 2008 , pp. 958 - 969
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Bill Bechtel, Jim Bogen, and Carl Craver for helpful comments. A General Research Board Award from the University of Maryland supported this work.

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