Tabery, James (2003) Synthesizing Activities and Interactions in the Concept of a Mechanism. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Stuart Glennan, and the team of Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden and Carl Craver have recently provided two accounts of the concept of a mechanism. The main difference between these two versions rests on how the behavior of the parts of the mechanism is conceptualized. Glennan considers mechanisms to be an interaction of parts, where the interaction between parts can be characterized by direct, invariant, change-relating generalizations. Machamer, Darden, and Craver criticize traditional conceptualizations of mechanisms which are based solely on parts interacting and introduce a new concept—activity. This essay is an attempt at carving out a relationship between these two philosophical interpretations of a mechanism. I will claim that, rather than being in conflict, Glennan’s concept of interaction and Machamer, Darden, and Craver’s notion of activity actually complement one another, each emphasizing a missing element of the other.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Tabery, James
Keywords:	activity, causation, explanation, invariance, interaction, interactivity, mechanism, productivity
Subjects:	General Issues > Causation General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	James Tabery
Date Deposited:	02 Oct 2003
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:12
Item ID:	1428
Subjects:	General Issues > Causation General Issues > Explanation
Date:	October 2003
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/1428

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