ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on mechanisms and compares mechanistic accounts with counterfactual accounts of causation. It shows mechanisms-of that are not at the same time mechanisms-for and argues that why mechanisms-for have to incorporate laws and/or counterfactuals: a mechanism-for involves components that interact with one another; but laws and/or counterfactuals are needed to account for these interactions; hence, mechanisms-for need to incorporate laws and/or counterfactuals. However, Jim Bogen has taken the existence of mechanisms that function irregularly as an argument against the view that laws and regular behavior have to characterize the function of mechanisms. The chapter deals with this argument from irregular mechanisms. It investigates whether a mechanistic theory of causation ultimately relies on a counterfactual theory; or whether it constitutes a genuine version of the production approach. The chapter describes the issue turns not around the need or not to posit relations of counterfactual dependence but around what the suitable truth-makers for counterfactuals are.
