Abstract

BARBERIS, Sergio Daniel. Un análisis crítico de la concepción mecanicista de la explicación. Rev. latinoam. filos. [online]. 2012, vol.38, n.2, pp.233-265. ISSN 1852-7353.

In this paper, I offer a critical assessment of the mechanicist approach to scientific explanation. Firstly, I argue that the mechanicist characterization of (non explanatory) phenomenological models is inadequate, since it does not develop an explication of the concepts of scientific model and similarity, which are indispensable to the approach. Secondly, I claim that the mechanicist conception of (explanatory) mechanicist models is inadequate as well, since all the available analices of the explanatory relation of constitutive relevance imply a metaphysical thesis that is rejected by the mechanicists themselves. I conclude that mechanicism needs to be emended if it aims to be considered as a genuinely illuminating approach to scientific explanation.

Keywords : Scientific explanation; Mechanicism; Phenomenological models; Constitutive relevance; Interlevel causation.

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