The past two decades have witnessed an increase in interest in social mechanisms and mechanistic explanations of social macro-phenomena. This paper addresses the question of what the components of social mechanisms in mechanistic explanations of social macro-phenomena must be. Analytical sociology’s initial position and the main new proposals by analytical sociologists are discussed. It is argued that all of them are faced with outstanding difficulties. Subsequently, a minimal requirement regarding the components of social mechanisms is introduced. It is held that a component of a social mechanism in a mechanistic explanation of a social macro-phenomenon must not have the explanandum phenomenon as a part of it.

中文翻译：

---

机制解释和社会机制的组成部分

在过去的二十年中，人们对社会机制和对社会宏观现象的机械解释的兴趣有所增加。本文讨论了在对社会宏观现象进行机械解释时，社会机制的组成部分必须是什么的问题。讨论了分析社会学的初衷和分析社会学家提出的主要新建议。据认为，他们所有人都面临着巨大的困难。随后，引入了对社会机制组成部分的最低要求。人们认为，在对社会宏观现象进行机械解释的过程中，社会机制的一个组成部分一定不能将explanandum现象作为其一部分。