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LIT-1928: Top-down causation without top-down causes

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StatusActive — read in full 2026-11-01 (NOTE-1491); worth keeping as the mechanist's statement that the relation between levels is constitution, not causation, and for an admission the record needs. Interlevel experiments are symmetrical, and a lesion shows only "prima facie" that something is a component, since a part not "interactively integrated" may be a background condition (p. 553, n. 10). So the experiments do not by themselves draw the mechanism's boundary (THEORY-1287, CLAIM-530).
Tagsphilosophy-of-science, causality, mereology
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-1491 — Craver & Bechtel — top-down causation without top-down causes
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-1287 — The experiments mechanists use to find a mechanism's components (correlation, lesion, stimulation, and intervening on the whole while recording the parts) run in both directions between part and whole and, by Craver and Bechtel's own account, show only prima facie that an item is a component, because an item not interactively integrated into the system could be a background condition; they give no test of integration, so the experiments do not by themselves fix where a mechanism ends, THEORY-1291 — Within levels of mechanisms, apparent top-down and bottom-up causes can be read as mechanistically mediated effects, intralevel causation among components together with the constitution of the whole by them, so that the relation between levels is constitution and not causation; Craver and Bechtel show the translation for six cases, on the assumption, not argued, that every higher-level cause has a mechanistic explanation

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Craver, C. F., & Bechtel, W. (2007). Top-down causation without top-down causes. Biology and Philosophy, 22, 547–563 (online 2006) — DOI-10.1007/s10539-006-9028-8

Read in full in NOTE-1491.

Key takeaways

  • Levels are levels of mechanisms. X is at a lower level than S if and only if X is a component in the mechanism for some activity of S (p. 548). Such levels are “defined locally, within the context of a given type of mechanism” (p. 550), and are not tiers across nature.
  • Part and whole cannot be cause and effect. They are not distinct events, and they share their space-time paths. Interlevel “influence” is simultaneous and symmetrical, while causation is taken to be asymmetrical (pp. 551–553).
  • A mechanistically mediated effect is an intralevel causal chain plus one or more claims of constitution. Bottom-up cases are components’ interactions that make up a state of the whole. Top-down cases are parts “carried along for the ride”, or, in the interesting cases, “enlisted in the ride” (pp. 555–561).
  • The experiments are symmetrical. Lesion, stimulation, activation and correlation experiments run both ways between part and whole. They share a form with Mill’s methods, and they establish componency only prima facie (pp. 553–554, nn. 10–11).

Standing in the record

The record’s constructions put a maintaining process inside one system and outside another (CLAIM-522, CLAIM-414, CASE-189). Whether the difference is one of constitution is the question this paper’s framework poses, and its own experiments leave open. Read for that, not for the debate about downward causation.

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