When Is a Mechanistic Explanation Satisfactory? Reductionism and Antireductionism in the Context of Mechanistic Explanations

Abstract

Mechanisms are organized systems of parts that operate in such a way as to produce phenomena. It would seem, however, that mechanistic explanations can be indefinitely detailed and expanded by bottoming out at lower levels of composition and by taking into consideration higher-level systems. Given the possibility of an indefinite descent to lower levels of composition, how deep does one need to go in order to claim that the explanation satisfactorily accounts for the phenomenon of interest? And given the possibility of a progressive integration into more holistic contexts, how far one needs to go in order to claim that the mechanism described in the explanation acts as an independent module capable of producing the phenomenon on its own? I argue that the answer to these questions lies in the elaboration of norms for evaluating the completeness of mechanistic explanations.