Department of Philosophy, University of Bologna, Via Zamboni 38, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
Theor Med Bioeth. 2011 Feb;32(1):5-17. doi: 10.1007/s11017-010-9166-5.
This article focuses on the assessment of mechanistic relations with specific attention to medicine, where mechanistic models are widely employed. I first survey recent contributions in the philosophical literature on mechanistic causation, and then take issue with Federica Russo and Jon Williamson's thesis that two types of evidence, probabilistic and mechanistic, are at stake in the health sciences. I argue instead that a distinction should be drawn between previously acquired knowledge of mechanisms and yet-to-be-discovered knowledge of mechanisms and that both probabilistic evidence and manipulation are essential with respect to newly discovered mechanisms.
本文重点关注机械关系的评估，特别关注医学领域中广泛应用机械模型的情况。我首先调查了哲学文献中关于机械因果关系的最新贡献，然后对 Federica Russo 和 Jon Williamson 的论点提出质疑，即概率证据和机械证据在健康科学中都有涉及。我认为，应该区分已经获得的机制知识和尚未发现的机制知识，并且对于新发现的机制来说，概率证据和操纵都是必不可少的。
