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Discovering Mechanisms: A Computational Philosophy of Science Perspective

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Discovery Science (DS 2001)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2226))

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Abstract

A task in the philosophy of discovery is to find reasoning strategies for discovery, which fall into three categories: strategies for generation, evaluation and revision. Because mechanisms are often what is discovered in biology, a newc haracterization of mechanism aids in their discovery. A computational system for discovering mechanisms is sketched, consisting of a simulator, a library of mechanism schemas and components, and a discoverer for generating, evaluating and revising proposed mechanism schemas. Revisions go through stages from howp ossibly to howplausibly to howactually .

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland, 20742, College Park, MD

    Lindley Darden

Authors
  1. Lindley Darden
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. DFKI GmbH Saarbrücken, 66123, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Klaus P. Jantke

  2. Department of Informatics, Kyushu University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, 812-8581, Fukuoka, Japan

    Ayumi Shinohara

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Darden, L. (2001). Discovering Mechanisms: A Computational Philosophy of Science Perspective. In: Jantke, K.P., Shinohara, A. (eds) Discovery Science. DS 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2226. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45650-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45650-3_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-42956-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45650-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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