Mechanism (philosophy)
belief that natural wholes are composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other
Mechanism refers to several metaphysical belief systems which include universal mechanism and anthropic mechanism. A central tenant is the claim that the natural world resembles a complex machine in the sense that its parts lack any intrinsic relationship to each other. The mechanical philosophy is also a form of natural philosopohy which equates the universe to a vast machine.
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Quotes
edit- If you believe that you are not a machine, but that I am (then) I do not know why you are reading this book".
- I suppose the body to be nothing but a statue or machine made of earth, which God forms with the explicit intention of making it as much as possible like us.
- Rene Descartes, L'Homme (The Treatise on Man) (1662) [1] XI:119, CSM I:99
- The mechanical philosophy is a case of being victimized by metaphor. I choose Descartes and Newton as excellent examples of metaphysicians of mechanism malgré eux, that is to say, as unconscious victims of the metaphor of the great machine. Together they have founded a church, more powerful than that founded by Peter and Paul, whose dogmas are now so entrenched that anyone who tries to reallocate the facts is guilty of more than heresy.
- Colin Murray Turbayne, The Myth of Metaphor (1962) [2] p. 5.
