 A number of aspects concerning the relation between reduction and mechanistic explanation are dealt with in the entry on  reductionism in biology.  Thus, suffice it to say that some philosophers, like Craver, reject a reductionist interpretation of mechanistic explanation (Craver 2007), whereas others seem to suggest that a conservative form of reductionism may be compatible with mechanistic explanation (Bechtel 2007 and, especially, Schaffner 2006). Interestingly, the example of the reduction of headaches as described by Nagel (see above,  Section 1)  seems to suggest that he conceives of reductive explanation as mechanistic explanation. This is consonant with his first publication on reduction: In his early paper on reduction (Nagel 1935), he describes reduction as a constitution relation. Van Riel (2014) suggests that reductive explanation is a cognate of mechanistic explanation.