Mechanisms are now taken widely in philosophy of science to provide one of modern science’s basic explanatory devices. This has raised lively debate concerning the relationship between mechanisms, laws and explanation. This paper focuses on cases where a mechanism gives rise to a ceteris paribus law, addressing two inter-related questions: (1) What kind of explanation is involved? and (2) What is going on in the world when mechanism M affords behavior B described in a ceteris paribus law? We explore various answers offered by ‘new mechanists’ and others before setting out and explaining our own answers: (1) mechanistic explanations are a species of old-fashioned covering-law explanation and this often accounts in part for their explanatory power; and (2) B is what it takes for some set of principles that govern the features of M’s parts in their arrangement in M all to be instanced together.

中文翻译：

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机制，法律和解释

现在，在科学哲学中广泛采用了机制来提供现代科学的基本解释工具之一。关于机制，法律和解释之间的关系，引起了激烈的辩论。本文着重于一种机制引起了塞特尔同等法律的案例，解决了两个相互关联的问题：（1）涉及哪种解释？（2）当机制M赋予了ceteris paribus法律中描述的行为B时，世界正在发生什么？在阐述和解释我们自己的答案之前，我们先探究“新机制”等人提供的各种答案：（1）机械解释是一种老式的掩盖法解释，通常部分地解释了它们的解释力；