Towards the Methodological Turn in the Philosophy of Science - Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics - page 3

economic issues by employing the concepts and tools developed in the other field
(e.g., evolutionary game theory, behavioral economics) has drawn substantial
attention among scientists and philosophers of science alike. A study that
juxtaposes biology with economics and explores a deeper understanding of various
philosophical and methodological issues would prove meaningful. Daniel Steel's
( 2007 ) highly acclaimed topic has demonstrated this. Finally, recent accounts of
mechanism and causality in the philosophy of science are often associated with
biology and economics. Whereas the philosophy of mechanism has been developed
mainly by philosophers of biology (e.g., Machamer et al. 2000 ; Glennan 1996 ,
2002 ; Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005 ), philosophical discussions of causality have
been inspired by the practices of economists (e.g., Cartwright 1999 , 2007 ;
Woodward 2003 ). Recent works on causality in economics (e.g., Hoover 2001 )
have also made significant contributions to current and future research on the
methodology of causal structure in science in general. However, even though
mechanism and causality occupy the main stage of research in both the philosophy
of biology and that of economics, only few studies have been done that bring the
accounts in one discipline to the other. This edited volume can be seen as a result of
collaborative interaction and mutual understanding among philosophers from dif-
ferent disciplines.
2 Mechanism and Causality in the Philosophy of Science
Although causal inquiry has long been regarded as one of the core elements of
science, the focus of the philosophical investigation of causality has changed over
time since at least the modern era. Traditionally, the discussion tended to pay much
more attention to inquiring about the metaphysical aspect of causality. This ten-
dency reached its climax in Hume's famous inquiry about the secret connection
between any two events—cause and effect. Then in the first half of the twentieth
century, influenced by the positivist philosophy of science and the Humean regu-
larity view of the laws of nature, the discussion shifted to a concern about the
epistemological aspects of the subject. In particular, attempts have been made to
delineate the characteristics of causality by using conditional analysis, that is, by
analyzing causality in terms of necessary or sufficient conditions, or both. By
temporarily leaving aside the question of the existence and characteristics of
causality, the new generation of philosophers tries to construct down-to-earth
accounts of causality, especially by referring to practicing scientists' achievements
in finding patterns in the empirical data of targeted variables that they collect from
experiments or field studies. In other words, contemporary philosophers of causal-
ity, recognizing that we human beings are agents of our own knowledge, tend to use
their restricted methodological lever to tease out indications of the answers of what
previously were thought to be questions about metaphysics and epistemology.
Similarly, the conception and application of mechanisms are nothing new in
science and philosophy. From the seventeenth century onward, we observe the