The Mechanical World

Studies in Brain and Mind Volume 13 Editor-in-Chief Gualtiero Piccinini, University of Missouri - St. Louis, U.S.A. Editorial Board Berit Brogaard, University of Missouri - St. Louis, U.S.A. Carl Craver, Washington University, U.S.A. Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A. Oron Shagrir, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Mark Sprevak, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6540 Beate Krickel The Mechanical World The Metaphysical Commitments of the New Mechanistic Approach Beate Krickel Department of Philosophy II Ruhr-University Bochum Bochum, Germany ISSN 1573-4536 ISSN 2468-399X (electronic) Studies in Brain and Mind ISBN 978-3-030-03628-7 ISBN 978-3-030-03629-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03629-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018961738 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgments This book began as my PhD thesis, submitted in June 2014 at the HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin, Germany. I thank my supervisors, Geert Keil and Andreas Hüttemann, for their support and feedback. I also thank my former colleagues from Humboldt University for their helpful discussions and the good times we had together in Berlin. In particular, I want to thank Alexander Dinges, Julia Zakkou, Thomas Krödel, Sanja Dembic, Sebastian Bender, and the participants of Prof. Keil’s colloquium. I also profited from discussions with Marie Kaiser, Lena Kästner, Dan Brooks, the LeRM group, Michael Baumgartner, Lorenzo Casini, Jens Harbecke, Stuart Glennan, Felipe Romero, Florian Fischer, Sven Walter, and Achim Stephan. I had the honor of being a member of an annual meeting of philosophers which included such figures as Carl Gillett, Carrie Figdor, Christian Sachse, Fred Adams, Larry Shapiro, Rob Rupert, Tom Polger, and Zoe Drayson, all of whom provided helpful feedback on the presentations of my PhD thesis. I am also grateful to Kelley Schiffmann for proofreading an earlier version of the manuscript. Finally, I benefitted a lot from my stay at Washington University in St. Louis; the discussions I had there with Carl Craver were deeply intellectually stimulating, and he later helped me finish the book while also providing challenging feedback that greatly improved the arguments therein. I started writing this book in 2016 while working in Albert Newen’s research group at Ruhr University Bochum. This provided the perfect environment for my project, and I want to thank my colleagues, especially Albert Newen, Alfredo Vernazzani, Francesco Marchi, Judith Martens, Krys Dolega, Pascale Willemsen, Peter Brössel, Sabrina Coninx, and Tobias Starzak, for their feedback and helpful discussions. Also, I gained a great deal from discussions with Frances Egan, Michael Kirchhoff, and Rob Rupert, who visited the research group at different times in 2016/2017. Furthermore, I want to thank the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg “Situated Cognition” (GRK-2185/1) for supporting the completion of this book. Finally, I want to thank my friends and family for their support over the last few years. I am especially grateful to my uncle, who was the first philosopher in my family and taught me how to write philosophical texts; my high school teachers v vi Acknowledgments Mr. Leubner and Mrs. Dittforth, who awakened my interest in philosophy; my twin sister, without whom I would not have survived my time as a PhD student; my partner, my mother, my father, my grandparents, and my sisters for always supporting me. Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The New Mechanistic Approach: Core Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Why the Metaphysics of Mechanisms Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Consequences for the Philosophy of Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Goals and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 7 9 11 13 2 Theories of Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Wesley Salmon’s Approach, the Ontic View, and the CausalConstitutive Distinction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Complex System Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The Acting Entities Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Acting Entities Mechanisms and the Etiological/Constitutive Distinction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Comparing Complex System Mechanisms and Acting Entities Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 18 22 25 30 32 35 36 3 Types of Mechanisms: Ephemeral, Regular, Functional . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Functional Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Regular Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Reversely Regular Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Individuating Mechanism Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 41 47 58 61 64 66 4 Entity–Activity Dualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 What Are Entities? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 What Are Activities? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Entity–Occurrent Dualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Activity Causation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 70 72 79 81 vii viii Contents 4.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 92 5 Mechanistic Componency, Relevance, and Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Causal Relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Constitutive Relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Organization and Levels of Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 95 98 102 107 108 6 Mechanistic Phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Mechanisms Do Not Explain Capacities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 The Functionalist View of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 The Behaving Entity View of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 113 7 Causation and Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Two Notions of Causation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Constitution: Connecting the Dots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 A New Interventionist Approach to Constitutive Relevance . . . . . . 7.4 Interlevel Causation and Exclusion Worries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Mechanistic Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 130 135 137 146 149 150 151 8 Autonomy, Laws of Nature, and the Mind–Body Problem . . . . . . . . 8.1 Summary: The Metaphysics of Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 The Autonomy of the Special Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Mechanisms vs. Laws—Is the New Mechanistic Approach Original? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Non-reductive Physicalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 155 159 114 120 124 125 160 162 163 List of Figures Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Illustration of a mechanism and its relation to the phenomenon in etiological mechanistic explanation ............................................ Illustration of a complex system mechanism. The larger box is an entity/object that is the mechanism (e.g., a heart); the smaller boxes are the parts (e.g., the right atrium, the right ventricle) of the larger entity that have the relevant dispositions that, if manifested, would create interactions such that the larger entity shows the behavior with regard to which the larger entity is a mechanism (e.g., pumping blood). The empty spaces between the parts are also occupied by parts of the complex system mechanism; but these parts are not included in the relevant decomposition of the complex system mechanism ......................... Illustration of the etiological mechanism (i.e., the EA-mechanism causing the phenomenon) and the constitutive mechanism (i.e., the EA-mechanism constituting the phenomenon) of a given phenomenon .................. Factual regularity: The relationship between types A and B is factually regular since A has multiple instances a1–a4 that bring about (cause or constitute) instances of B b1–b4 ............. Stochastic regularity: The relationship between type A and type B is stochastically regular since some but not all instances of A a1–a7 bring about (cause or constitute) instances of B .................... High-failure mechanism: Type A has a high failure rate with respect to bringing about instances of type B since most of its instances a1–a11 do not bring about (cause or constitute) an instance of B............................................................................... Illustration of the cancer mechanism. (Illustration inspired by Grundmann 2000, Chap. 8)............................................................. 22 24 31 49 51 52 53 ix x Fig. 3.5 Fig. 3.6 Fig. 3.7 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3 Fig. 7.4 Fig. 7.5 List of Figures Comparative regularity: The relationship between types A and B is comparatively regular since there are more instances of A a1–a9 that bring about an instance of B than instances of A that bring about a particular other type—the instances that do not bring about an instance of B bring about tokens that are instances of various different types C, D, E, F, G........................................... Reverse regularity: The relationship between types A and B is reversely regular since all instances of B b1–b4 are caused/constituted by instances of A ........................................ Comparative reverse regularity: The relationship between types A and B is comparatively reversely regular since more instances of B are brought about by an instance of A than by any other type—the instances of B that are not brought about by an instance of A are due to instances of various different types J, K, L, M, N .......................................................................... Illustration of (a) a spatial EIO-part of an EIO, and (b) a temporal EIO-part of an EIO .......................................... Causal graph of a common cause structure..................................... Mutual manipulability in terms of interventions: the phenomenon (represented by variable Ψ) and a component (Φi ∈ Φ1–Φ3) are mutually manipulable iff there is an ideal intervention IΨ on Ψ with respect to Φi that changes Φi, and there is an ideal intervention IΦi on Φi with respect to Ψ that changes Ψ. (Adapted from Baumgartner and Gebharter 2015) ....................................................................... Example of different level of mechanisms. (Krickel 2017, 2018; loosely adapted from Craver 2007a, 166) ....................................... Verticality of mechanistic levels: Craver’s notion of levels of mechanisms implies that levels are relative to phenomena at a specific point in time ................................................................ Mechanistic levels with horizontal extension ................................. The Craver diagram. (Adapted from Craver 2007, 7) ..................... Illustration of a constitutive mechanism: modification of the Craver-diagram based on the metaphysical considerations from the previous chapters .............................................................. Mutual manipulability as a relation between a component and temporal EIO-parts of the phenomenon ................................... Constitutive relevance in terms of interventionism requires two ideal* interventions (a) (bottom-up intervention) and (b) (top-down intervention) ...................................................... Interlevel causation between temporal EIO-parts of phenomena (transparent slices) and components of mechanisms (grey tubes) ............................................................ 56 58 61 80 96 100 103 104 107 136 137 140 140 147