Mechanisms and Laws: Clarifying the Debate - Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics - page 134

systematic theory of causation ( 2003 ). According to that theory, very roughly,
causal regularities are stable regularities that continue to hold when one intervenes
to change the cause variable. This view of (c)P-regularities, however, depends
fundamentally on the idea of an intervention. It also depends on the notion of an
ideal intervention, which is one that intervenes via some causal paths and not
others . It also depends on a thesis of modularity: that it is possible to intervene
independently on the different components of a mechanism. As Woodward
acknowledges time and again, this view of the semantics of causal claims is not
intended as a reductive, metaphysical analysis of the notion of cause. It would be
circular as such because one requires an antecedent notion of causation to ground
these features of the account (interventions, uncontrolled paths, and modularity).
Ironically, a singular notion of causation such as Bogen defends might be just what
Woodward's account of intervention and modularity need for their metaphysical
ground. If so, then the claim that (c)p-laws are metaphysically more fundamental
than singular causation would have the story exactly backwards. But these are
complicated matters that we must leave for now.
3.3 Laws Without Mechanisms?
Above we focus on Leuridan's claim that cs-mechanisms ontologically depend on
macrolevel (a) as well as on microlevel (b) (c)P-regularities (L1). For the sake of
completeness, let us consider Leuridan's second ontological thesis (L2) that there
can be (c)P-regularities without underlying mechanisms. Leuridan needs this sec-
ond thesis to establish the desired “ontological asymmetry between P-regularities
and cs-mechanisms” ( 2010 , p. 331). In his hands, this amounts to the claim that it is
possible that there are fundamental (c)p-laws, that is, (c)p-laws for which no
mechanisms exist. Leuridan does not argue for this thesis, but it seems to us at
least conceivable that the world is structured with fundamental (c)p-laws (Glennan
1996 , 2002 , 2010 embraces this view). To decide whether this conceivable onto-
logical picture is actual, however, would require further argument. It is also
conceivable that the world has an infinite series of mechanisms within mechanisms,
or that it grounds out ultimately in individual singular causal relations (as Bogen
recommends), or perhaps that it grounds out in occurrent matters of fact. Leuridan
has no argument to convince us that we are in one of these worlds rather than the
other, and we therefore see no compelling reason for a mechanist to take sides.
4 Mechanism and Epistemology
Let us turn finally to Leuridan's claim that p-law statements are epistemically
fundamental to mechanistic models. First, he argues that explanatory mechanistic
models must include p-law statements (L3), and so mechanistic explanation cannot