The Concept of Mechanisms Explaining a Phenomenon

The idea that we shouldn't be looking for definitions goes back to very influential philosophers like Nick and Stein, which is language games idea. So it's kind of sad that still there are a lot of philosophers trying to do philosophical analysis by giving definitions. It's really bizarre because there's huge amounts of both philosophical arguments and empirical evidence to think this is just the wrong way to go. But I came out of a background in philosophy of science where you look at what you learn from science and how it operates. And probably the first philosopher to emphasize the role of mechanisms in science was Wesley salmon.