ABSTRACT
A number of proponents of the mechanism-based explanation in natural and social science include both the processes that make an entity causally efficacious and that entity itself into their definition of mechanism. Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular changes from start or set-up to finish or termination conditions. A mechanism for a behavior is a complex system that produces that behavior by the interaction of a number of parts, where the interactions between parts can be characterized by direct, invariant, change-relating generalizations. In the author view, the strength of Bunge's composition-environment-structure-mechanism (CESM) model is that it clearly distinguishes among "system", "structure" and "mechanism" by defining them in relation to one another. At first glance, Bunge's CESM Model is similar to Philip Gorksi's ECPRES model, which construes mechanisms as "emergent causal powers of related entities within a system".
