Abstract

The term ‘mechanism’ is ubiquitous in biology. This has caused philosophers of biology to closely examine what mechanisms are. Many characteristics of mechanisms have been generated by philosophers calling their movement the New Mechanist Philosophy, with some proponents even going as far to say that biology is fundamentally a science of mechanisms. This means that the activity of biologists is organized around the discovery, investigation, and understanding of mechanisms and offering mechanistic explanations. But other terms are also employed by scientists, like ‘pathway.’ Carl Craver, a New Mechanist, claims that ‘mechanism’ can do the work of ‘pathway’ and equates these terms. However, this fundamentalist approach runs afoul of the messy conceptual practices that real scientists engage in. I examine a case from ecology where ecologists are engaged in conceptual practices, employing the terms ‘mechanism’ and ‘pathway’ in their explanation. What I learn from this case is that the terms are designating concepts, which are designating scientific explanations, or objects of scientific knowledge. Instead of equating these terms, I argue that for a better understanding of scientific practice, these concepts designated by terms are to be thought of as cognitive tools, aiding the scientists to achieve their aims.