Public Defense of Münir Cem Kayaligil on Against Mechanismic Realism: A Study on Mechanistic Explanation

The Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to the Public Defense of the PhD Dissertation
by
Münir Cem Kayaligil
on
Against Mechanismic Realism:A Study on Mechanistic Explanation

Supervisor: Ferenc Huoranszki
Members of the Defense Committee:
Arnon Levy (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Maria Kronfeldner (CEU)
Chair: David Weberman

Abstract

This study attempts to counter a specific brand of scientific realism: the not-much-explicated metaphysical stance of the proponents of mechanismic philosophy of science (the mechanismic philosophers, better known as "the new mechanistic philosophers"). These philosophers aim to put philosophical flesh on scientific mechanism-talk that is widely observed in life sciences and some other high-level (non-fundamental) domains of scientific inquiry. They advance a particular understanding of scientific explanation based on mechanism-talk, asserting that the explanation of high-level phenomena by describing the mechanisms underlying them is a non-lawful and non-reductive practice. On their line of argumentation, such practice sets high-level sciences apart from fundamental physics, and it accordingly demands a philosophical treatment that is different than the canonical approaches to scientific explanation.

Most of the charges brought against mechanismic philosophy of science are concerned with its proponents' overestimation of mechanistic explanation. In the final analysis, I intend to be siding with these philosophers challenging the mechanismic philosophers. However the line of attack that I pursue here is different from theirs (the former) for not focusing on the supposed non-lawful and non-reductive character of mechanistic explanation. Instead I am concerned with the metaphysical foundations of mechanistic explanation, and the implications of the mechanismic philosophers' assessment of mechanistic explanation. In particular I argue against the ontological commitment to mechanisms construed as causally organized token occurrences which are found relevant to the investigated phenomenon. I claim that, as opposed to being the subjects of models, mechanisms themselves are the models of real systems. This position, which I label as "mechanismic non-realism", can be shown to be compatible with scientific antirealism. Nevertheless I purposefully avoid this, since I am a scientific realist. Hence the challenge for me is accounting for what is out there that mechanistic explanations are about. I suggest that dispositional realism is a viable position to adopt in this context. On the metaphysical approach I defend, mechanisms represent the repeatable patterns in the causal structure, underlain by the causal properties conferring dispositions on their bearers to behave in certain ways.