Concept

Mechanism (philosophy)

Overview

Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes (principally living things) are similar to complicated machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other.

The doctrine of mechanism in philosophy comes in two different varieties. They are both doctrines of metaphysics, but they are different in scope and ambitions: the first is a global doctrine about nature; the second is a local doctrine about humans and their minds, which is hotly contested. For clarity, we might distinguish these two doctrines as universal mechanism and anthropic mechanism.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Passages from public-domain books where Mechanism (philosophy) is discussed.

For each of our acts we shall easily find antecedents of which it may in some sort be said to be the mechanical resultant. And it may equally well be said that each action is the realization of an intention. In this sense mechanism is everywhere, and finality everywhere, in the evolution of our conduct. But if our action be one that involves the whole of our person and is truly ours, it could not have been foreseen…
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
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Propositions regarding a past world, just as past (not as furnishing the conditions of what is to be done), might be complete and accurate, but they would be of the nature of a complex catalogue. To introduce, in addition, the conception of mechanism is to introduce the implication of possibilities of future accomplishment.[80]
John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic
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One difficulty in this position is the present confusion as to the foundational concepts of physical science. This same difficulty also attaches to the opposed doctrine of vitalism. For, in this later theory, the fact of mechanism is accepted—I mean, mechanism based upon materialism—and an additional vital control is introduced to explain the actions of living bodies. It cannot be too clearly understood that the…
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the modern world
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On the face of it, I cannot understand the logic which says that because mechanism is mechanism, and because acts, aims, values are vital, therefore a statement in terms of one is alien to the comprehension and proper management of the other. Ends are not compromised when referred to the means necessary to realize them. Values do not cease to be values when they are minutely and accurately measured.
John Dewey, Psychology and Social Practice
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It must however be remembered, that within these spheres the laws of mechanism cease to be final or decisive, and sink, as it were, to a subservient position. To which may be added, that, in Nature, when the higher or organic functions are in any way checked or disturbed in their normal efficiency, the otherwise subordinate category of mechanism is immediately seen to take the upper hand. Thus a sufferer from…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
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Mechanism (philosophy)

Overview

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