The current philosophical consensus is that science searches for mechanisms. This book re-evaluates central features of this consensus arguing that 'mechanism' as used in scientific practice is a methodological concept, which implies no deep metaphysical commitments.
Stathis Psillos divides his account into three sections: causation, laws of nature, and explanation. He begins the causation section with Hume's classic "reductive" account and then focuses on the subsequent division between Humean and non-Humean accounts, examining topics such as regularities and singular causation, causation and counterfactuals, and causation and mechanism.