| 单词 | explanatory mechanism |
| 释义 | explanatory mechanismexplanatory mechanismany scientific account of the causal factors (or ‘causal powers’) underlying a general phenomenon, e.g. ‘natural selection’ (in EVOLUTIONARY THEORY), or contradictory modes of production and class conflict (in MARXISM). The term has gained in currency recently as a result of the influence within sociology of the SCIENTIFIC REALISM of Rom Harré (1970 and, with E. Madden, 1975) and Roy Bhaskar (1975,1979 and 1986), in which the formulation of ‘explanatory mechanisms’ is presented as the core of scientific EXPLANATION. This account of science and scientific explanation is preferred to those couched in terms of empirical regularities and general laws (e.g. the COVERING-LAW MODEL) for a number of reasons, above all that laws can be either empirical regularities or ‘universal’ and ‘transfactual’, but not both. The use of the term ‘explanatory mechanism’ both bypasses the problems associated with EMPIRICISM (see also POSITIVISM) and offers a way of recognizing the variety of forms taken by scientific explanatory accounts. |
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