This chapter offers an account of mechanistic production, which is contrasted with Salmon and Dowe’s theory of physical production. It provides a new analysis of the nature of events, and an account of how those events can form productive causal chains. This account identifies three distinct kinds of production: constitutive, precipitating, and chained. The chapter shows how the New Mechanist account addresses a number of standard problems for theories of causation, and for mechanistic theories in particular. These include how mechanistic production could be grounded in fundamental physics, how productive theories can explain causation by omission, prevention, and disconnection, how to explain causal relevance without appeal to counterfactuals, and how to understand the relation between production and constitution in inter-level causal claims. The chapter concludes by discussing how the New Mechanist approach to causation and constitution leads to a sensible account of the nature and limits of reduction and emergence.
Field-induced double spin spiral in a frustrated chiral magnet
