Ioannidis, Stavros and Psillos, Stathis (2017) In Defense of Methodological Mechanism: The Case of Apoptosis. Axiomathes. ISSN 1572-8390
|
Text
Ioannidis & Psillos_Methodological Mechanism.pdf Download (236kB) | Preview |
Abstract
This paper advances the thesis of methodological mechanism, the claim that to be committed to mechanism is to adopt a certain methodological postulate, i.e. to look for causal pathways for the phenomena of interest. We argue that methodological mechanism incorporates a minimal account of understanding mechanisms, according to which a mechanism just is a causal pathway described in the language of theory. In order to argue for this position we discuss a central example of a biological mechanism, the mechanism of cell death, known as apoptosis. We argue that this example shows that our philosophically de?lationary account is sufficient in order to have an illuminating account of mechanisms as the concept is used in biology.
| Export/Citation: | EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL |
| Social Networking: |
| Item Type: | Published Article or Volume | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators: |
|
|||||||||
| Keywords: | Mechanism; Methodology; Causation; Causal pathways of apoptosis; Cell death | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics General Issues > Causation General Issues > Explanation |
|||||||||
| Depositing User: | Dr. Stavros Ioannidis | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 14 Nov 2017 15:52 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 14 Nov 2017 15:52 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 14119 | |||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Axiomathes | |||||||||
| Publisher: | Springer | |||||||||
| Official URL: | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10516-0... | |||||||||
| DOI or Unique Handle: | 10.1007/s10516-017-9354-2 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics General Issues > Causation General Issues > Explanation |
|||||||||
| Date: | 2017 | |||||||||
| ISSN: | 1572-8390 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14119 |
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Altmetric.com
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}