Making Sense of Interlevel Causation in Mechanisms from a Metaphysical Perspective

Abstract

According to the new mechanistic approach, an acting entity is at a lower mechanistic level than another acting entity if and only if the former is a component in the mechanism for the latter. Craver and Bechtel (2007) argue that a consequence of this view is that there cannot be causal interactions between acting entities at different mechanistic levels. Their main reason seems to be what I will call the Metaphysical Argument: things at different levels of a mechanism are related as part and whole; wholes and their parts cannot be related as cause and effect; hence, interlevel causation in mechanisms is impossible. I will analyze this argument in more detail and show under which conditions it is valid. This analysis will reveal that interlevel causation in mechanisms is indeed possible, if we take seriously the idea that the relata of the mechanistic level relation are acting entities and accept a slightly modified notion of a mechanistic level that is highly plausible in the light of the first clarification.

Mechanistic explanation for enactive sociality

“…This is exactly what Krickel (2017) has done in a recent paper. By doing so she has killed two birds with one stone: not only is her diachronic notion of constitution a plausible diachronic extension of the standard mechanistic picture drawn by e.g.…”

An Enactive Approach to Psychiatry

“…Some suggest that a relation of constitution (parts that make up a whole) is a synchronic relation, which distinguishes them from causal processes as these take place over time (Adams & Aizawa, 2008;Aizawa, 2010). Others, however, argue that part-whole or local-global relationships can be diachronic as well, calling for a different view on what marks causal and constitutional relations (Gallagher, 2017;Kirchhoff, 2015;Krickel, 2017). And when it comes to living beings and their sense-making capacities a static view of constitution is not very helpful.…”

The Extended Mind: State of the Question

“…A third possible strategy is to introduce a more realistic supposition about the temporal nature of the system as a whole, in a way that points to a more dynamical conception of constitution closer to extended and enactivist views of mind (e.g., Krickel ). On this view MM may test a form of interlevel causal relations that operate between working parts on the microlevel at time t 1 and a macrolevel temporal part at time t 2 (assuming S ψ‐ing is realistically understood as itself a temporal process).…”

“…Enactivism also offers strong support for the concept of body‐environment coupling characterized as involving reciprocal causal dynamics. Putatively, it presents a case for a dynamical conception of constitution that a makes the C‐C fallacy objection irrelevant by favoring an interpretation of mutual manipulability as reflecting a causal intervention across dynamical, nonlinear time scales, an interpretation close to the views of Kaplan (), Kirchhoff (), and Krickel ().…”