Embracing the Meta-Copernican Turn: Non-decomposition and Mechanistic Explanations

Abstract

In line with proponents of 4E cognition, Gallagher [2019 Gallagher, S. 2019. Rethinking Nature: Phenomenology and a Non-reductionist Cognitive Science, Australasian Philosophical Review 2/2: 1–15. [Google Scholar]] is concerned that many cognitive phenomena are not amenable to decomposition strategies since their very nature is to be constituted extensively. By contrast the received view on causal explanation—the mechanistic account [Craver 2007 Craver, C. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience, Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]]—emphasises the necessity for decomposition in explaining natural phenomena and insists on a sharp distinction between causal versus constitutive relations. I propose that removing the requirement that constitutive relations cannot also be causes helps to ease this tension between explanation and Gallagher’s non-decompositional stance, per Leuridan [2012 Leuridan, B. 2012. Three Problems for the Mutual Manipulability Account of Constitutive Relevance in Mechanisms, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63/2: 399–427, doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axr036.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]. Further, I draw on Froese et al.’s [2013] minimal model of social cognition to argue that constitutive relations can and do act as causal difference-makers in the Woodwardian sense [Woodward 2003 Woodward, J. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]].