Favela, Luis H. and Chemero, Anthony (2021) Explanatory Pluralism: A Case Study from the Life Sciences. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The predominant view in the contemporary philosophies of the life sciences is that the most fundamental and viable kinds of explanations are mechanistic. In fact, some philosophers of the life science have claimed that the only genuine explanations in the life sciences are mechanistic. We believe this to be an unnecessarily restrictive position, both descriptively and normatively. Descriptively, much actual scientific research in the life sciences is not readily cast as mechanistic. There are many natural phenomena that benefit from the application of multiple explanatory strategies, even at the same scale of investigation. Thus, normatively speaking, research in the life sciences ought to begin from a pluralistic position concerning explanatory style. We defend this claim by means of the application of both mechanistic and dynamical explanatory strategies to bird flocking.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Favela, Luis H. luis.favela@ucf.edu 0000-0002-6434-959X Chemero, Anthony
Keywords:	bird flocking, dynamical explanation, explanatory pluralism, mechanistic explanation
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Complex Systems General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Dr. Luis H. Favela
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2021 14:17
Last Modified:	03 Jun 2021 14:18
Item ID:	19146
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Complex Systems General Issues > Explanation
Date:	2021
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19146

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