Synopsis
Discovering Complexity offers an account of scientific discovery that aims to be psychologically and historically realistic. Drawing on cases from a number of life sciences, including biochemistry, genetics, and neuroscience, this study of the dynamics of theory development focuses on two psychological heuristics, decomposition and localization. William Bechtel and Robert Richardson identify a number of "choice-points" that scientists confront in developing mechanistic explanations and describe how different choices result in divergent explanatory models. According to Bechtel and Richardson's analysis, decomposition is the attempt to differentiate components of a system, while localization assigns responsibility for specific tasks to these components. The book examines in detail the usefulness of these heuristics in biological science, but also discusses their fallibility: underlying their use is the sometimes false assumption that nature is significantly decomposable and hierarchical. When a system does not appear to be decomposable, a classic response has been to abandon the pursuit of mechanistic explanation and to settle for accurate descriptions of phenomena. More recently, with advances in mathematical modeling, an alternative has emerged. Described in this work is an approach to explanation that appeals to interactions between simple components, rather than assigning functions to individual components.
Review
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"The first edition of "Discovering Complexity" pioneered what has come to be called 'the new mechanistic philosophy, ' with original analyses of mechanistic explanation and the heuristics for discovering mechanisms in genetics, cell biology, and neuroscience. Having it back in print is a real service to philosophers and scientists investigating biological mechanisms, as well as critics of this approach. The new introduction is well worth reading on its own for an overview of the book's arguments, as well as summaries of the authors' more recent work on dynamic mechanistic explanations, discovery heuristics, emergence in systems biology, and circadian rhythms."--Lindley Darden, University of Maryland, College Park
"The original edition of "Discovering Complexity" was a landmark in the philosophy of science, with path-breaking accounts of explanation, mechanism, and the development of biological knowledge. This reissue is highly welcome, especially with the excellent new introduction that contains insightful updates about mechanisms, discovery, localization, emergence, and other crucial aspects of science."--Paul Thagard, University of Waterloo, author of "The Brain and the Meaning of Life"
"In "Discovering Complexity", Bechtel and Richardson sketched a blueprint for a post-reductive philosophy of science grounded in historical examples and focused on major heuristics and biases in the search for mechanisms. Many of the ideas in this book are as fresh today as they were when the book was first published; others have become the widely accepted background in the new mechanistic philosophy of science."--Carl F. Craver, Washington University in St. Louis, author of "Explaining the Brain"
"This classic of mechanistic analysis and explanation has been out of print for some years. It is reissued with a substantive new review of the explosion of interest in mechanistic explanation in philosophy of science and the crucial interpenetration of scientific and philosophical interests it represents. I welcome its return in even better form. MIT has done the profession a major service by reissuing this book. It should be required reading in any philosophy of science curriculum."--William C. Wimsatt, Peter M. Ritzma Professor of Philosophy, The University of Chicago
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