Abstract
Mechanistic explanations are often said to explain because they reveal the causal structure of the world. Conversely, dynamical models supposedly lack explanatory power because they do not describe causal structure. The only way for dynamical models to produce causal explanations is via the 3M criterion: the model must be mapped onto a mechanism. This framing of the situation has become the received view around the viability of dynamical explanation. In this paper, I argue against this position and show that dynamical models can themselves reveal causal structure and consequently produce non-mechanistic, dynamical explanations. Taking the example of cell fates from systems biology, I show how dynamical models, and specifically the attractor landscapes they describe, identify the causes of cell differentiation and explain why cells select particular fates. These dynamical features of the system better fit Woodward’s (Biol Philos 25(3):287–318, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9200-z; Synthese, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-01998-6) criteria of specificity and proportionality and make them the best candidate causes of cell fates than mechanisms. I also show how these causes are irreducible and inaccessible to mechanistic models, making 3M unworkable and counterproductive in this case. Dynamical models can reveal dynamical causes and thereby provide causal explanations.
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Notes
Following the convention proposed by Glennan and Illari (2018b) I distinguish the philosophical stance of Mechanism from the object called a mechanism via a capitalisation added to the former.
Though Kaplan and Craver (2011) qualify this demand for completeness: descriptions that reveal a partial causal structure and are in the process of completion can also be considered explanatory.
A nonmechanistic explanation refers broadly to any explanation that does not appeal to underlying causal mechanisms for its explanatory power.
I acknowledge here the significant debates around higher-level interventions in the mechanist literature, particularly the problem of fat-handedness: intervening on a higher-level variable necessitates simultaneously intervening on its supervenience base, and hence violating the interventionist requirement for isolating a single variable for intervention (see Baumgartner and Gebharter 2017; Krickel 2017). I bracket this substantial discussion by adhering to Woodward’s (2015) clarification to (M). Woodward specifies that non-causal supervenience relations between micro- and macro-levels need not be held steady in the same fashion as causal relations, so that “properties that supervene on but that are not identical with realizing properties can be causally efficacious.” (Woodward 2015, p. 303).
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Acknowledgements
I am particularly grateful to Nick Brancazio for minor comments and major support. Many thanks also to Michael Kirchhoff for helpful comments on this manuscript.
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Meyer, R. Dynamical causes. Biol Philos 35, 48 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-020-09755-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-020-09755-1