Flat mechanisms: a reductionist approach to levels in mechanistic explanations

Fazekas, Péter

doi:10.1007/s11098-021-01764-4

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…In the present paper we put the philosophical question regarding the nature of the relationships between these different descriptions (i.e. eliminative, reductive, non-reductive (Fazekas, 2009(Fazekas, , 2022 aside. What is important from our point of view, is that the construct space is defined by neural level constructs that are shared among the different theories and thus can offer a common, theory-neutral perspective.…”

Section: From Construct Space To New Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A construct-first approach to consciousness science

Fazekas,

Cleeremans,

Overgaard

2023

Preprint

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We propose a new approach to consciousness science that instead of comparing complex theoretical positions deconstructs existing theories, takes their core assumptions while disregarding their auxiliary hypotheses, and focuses its investigations on the main constructs that these core assumptions rely on (like global workspace, recurrent processing, metarepresentation). Studying how these main constructs are anchored in lower-level constructs characterizing underlying neural processing will not just offer an alternative to theory comparisons but will also take us one step closer to empirical resolutions. Moreover, exploring the compatibility and possible combinations of the lower-level constructs will allow for new theoretical syntheses. This construct-first approach will improve our ability to understand the commitments of existing theories and pave the way for moving beyond them.

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Section: From Construct Space To New Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A construct-first approach to consciousness science

Fazekas,

Cleeremans,

Overgaard

2023

Preprint

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Different Types of Mechanistic Explanation and Their Ontological Implications

Krickel

2023

History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences

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One assumption of the new mechanistic approach is that there are two kinds of mechanistic explanations: etiological and constitutive ones. While the former explain phenomena in terms of their preceding causes, the latter are supposed to refer to mechanisms that constitute phenomena. Based on arguments by Kaiser and Krickel (Br J Philos Sci 68(3):745–779, 2017) and Krickel (The mechanical world, vol. 13, Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03629-4, 2018), I will show that this view is too narrow. Indeed, three different types of explanation are usually subsumed under the label “constitutive explanation”. However, one of those types of explanation is not a version of constitutive explanation. Rather it is a variant of etiological explanation. As a result, I will show that there are four types of mechanistic explanation, two variants of etiological explanation—which I will call output mechanistic explanations and input-output mechanistic explanations—and two variants of constitutive explanation—which I will call filler mechanistic explanations and dimensioned mechanistic explanations. Keeping these apart is crucial as they come with different ontological implications. An evaluation of the mechanistic approach regarding its stance on reduction, levels, and interlevel causation crucially depends on which notion of mechanistic explanation one has in mind.

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