Mechanisms in Science

"When we think about mechanisms there are two general issues we need to consider. The first is broadly epistemic and has to do with the understanding of nature that identifying and knowing mechanisms yields. The second is broadly metaphysical and has to do with the status of mechanisms as building blocks of nature (and in particular, as fundamental constituents of causation). These two issues can be brought together under a certain assumption, which has had long historical pedigree, namely that nature is fundamentally mechanical"--

Stavros Ioannidis is Assistant Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is principal investigator of the project MECHANISM, funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation.