Bechtel, Williiam (2016) Explicating Top-­‐Down Causation Using Networks and Dynamics. [Preprint]

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Abstract

In many fields in the life sciences investigators refer to downward or top-down causal effects. Craver and Bechtel defended the view that such cases should be understood in terms of a constitution relation between levels in a mechanism and causation as solely an intra-level relation (occurring at any level). Craver and Bechtel, however, provided insufficient specification as to when entities constitute a higher-level mechanism. In this paper I appeal to graph-theoretic representations of networks that are now widely employed in systems biology and neuroscience to identify mechanisms with the modules that exhibit high clustering. As a result of the interconnections of nodes in these modules/mechanisms, they often exhibit complex dynamic behaviors that constrain how the individual components respond to external inputs, an important feature of cases viewed as involving top-down causation.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Bechtel, Williiam bechtel@ucsd.edu
Keywords:	constraints; downward causation; endogenous dynamics; graph representations; mechanistic explanations; negative feedb
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics General Issues > Causation General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Professor William Bechtel
Date Deposited:	21 Jun 2016 03:50
Last Modified:	21 Jun 2016 03:50
Item ID:	12214
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics General Issues > Causation General Issues > Explanation
Date:	20 June 2016
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/12214

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