This open access book addresses the epistemological and ontological significance as well as the
scope of new mechanism. In particular this book addresses the issues of what is new about new
mechanism the epistemological and ontological reasons underlying the adoption of mechanistic
instead of other modelling strategies as well as the possibility of mechanistic explanation to
accommodate a non-trivial notion of emergence. Arguably new mechanism has been particularly
successful in making sense of scientific practice in the molecular life sciences. But what
about other sciences? This book enlarges the context of analysis addressing the issue of the
putative compatibility between the current ways of conceiving new mechanism and actual
scientific practices in quantum physics chemistry biochemistry developmental biology and the
cognitive sciences.
