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Full Idea
Summary: mechanisms depend on regularities, there may be regularities without mechanisms, models of mechanisms must incorporate pragmatic laws, and pragmatic laws do not depend epistemologically on mechanistic models.
Gist of Idea
We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms
Source
Bert Leuridan (Can Mechanisms Replace Laws of Nature? [2010], §1)
Book Ref
-: 'Philosophy of Science' [-], p.3
A Reaction
See Idea 14382 for 'pragmatic' laws. I'm quite keen on mechanisms, so this is an arrow close to the heart, but at this point I say that my ultimate allegiance is to powers, not to mechanisms.
Related Idea
Idea 14382 Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable [Leuridan]
| 12787 | Mechanisms can't explain on their own, as their models rest on pragmatic regularities [Leuridan] |
| 14384 | We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms [Leuridan] |
| 14382 | Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable [Leuridan] |
| 14383 | A 'law of nature' is just a regularity, not some entity that causes the regularity [Leuridan] |
| 14385 | Strict regularities are rarely discovered in life sciences [Leuridan] |
| 14387 | Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan] |
| 14386 | Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on regularities [Leuridan] |
| 12789 | Biological functions are explained by disposition, or by causal role [Leuridan] |
| 12790 | Generalisations must be invariant to explain anything [Leuridan] |
| 14388 | Mechanisms must produce macro-level regularities, but that needs micro-level regularities [Leuridan] |
| 14389 | There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities [Leuridan] |