The New Mechanical Philosophy

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The New Mechanical Philosophy

Author : Stuart Glennan
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191085286
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Mechanical Philosophy by : Stuart Glennan

Download or read book The New Mechanical Philosophy written by Stuart Glennan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Mechanical Philosophy argues for a new image of nature and of science—one that understands both natural and social phenomena to be the product of mechanisms, and that casts the work of science as an effort to discover and understand those mechanisms. Drawing on an expanding literature on mechanisms in physical, life, and social sciences, Stuart Glennan offers an account of the nature of mechanisms and of the models used to represent them. A key quality of mechanisms is that they are particulars - located at different places and times, with no one just like another. The crux of the scientist's challenge is to balance the complexity and particularity of mechanisms with our need for representations of them that are abstract and general. This volume weaves together metaphysical and methodological questions about mechanisms. Metaphysically, it explores the implications of the mechanistic framework for our understanding of classical philosophical questions about the nature of objects, properties, processes, events, causal relations, natural kinds and laws of nature. Methodologically, the book explores how scientists build models to represent and understand phenomena and the mechanisms responsible for them. Using this account of representation, Glennan offers a scheme for characterizing the enormous diversity of things that scientists call mechanisms, and explores the scope and limits of mechanistic explanation.

The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy

Author : Stuart Glennan
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 131755230X
Total Pages : 474 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy by : Stuart Glennan

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy written by Stuart Glennan and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists studying the burning of stars, the evolution of species, DNA, the brain, the economy, and social change, all frequently describe their work as searching for mechanisms. Despite this fact, for much of the twentieth century philosophical discussions of the nature of mechanisms remained outside philosophy of science. The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into four Parts: Historical perspectives on mechanisms The nature of mechanisms Mechanisms and the philosophy of science Disciplinary perspectives on mechanisms. Within these Parts central topics and problems are examined, including the rise of mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century; what mechanisms are made of and how they are organized; mechanisms and laws and regularities; how mechanisms are discovered and explained; dynamical systems theory; and disciplinary perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, biomedicine, ecology, neuroscience, and the social sciences. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of science, the Handbook will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as metaphysics, philosophy of psychology, and history of science.

Isaac Beeckman on Matter and Motion

Author : Klaas van Berkel
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421409364
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis Isaac Beeckman on Matter and Motion by : Klaas van Berkel

Download or read book Isaac Beeckman on Matter and Motion written by Klaas van Berkel and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-08-14 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Historians of science and the philosophy of science find the substance and stance of Isaac Beeckman's thought highly interesting, for it represented an early attempt to develop a comprehensive picture of the world by means of mechanistic theory, that is, forces acting upon one another. Besides possibly influencing Descartes, this view broke away from medieval religious assumptions and belief in occult forces. Berkel teases out Beeckman's evolving approach to nature by means of his extensive journals, explaining the leading concept of "picturability." Beeckman supplied a stepping stone (one still not widely appreciated) on the path that led to the scientific revolution"--

Richard Baxter and the Mechanical Philosophers

Author : David S. Sytsma
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190274875
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Richard Baxter and the Mechanical Philosophers by : David S. Sytsma

Download or read book Richard Baxter and the Mechanical Philosophers written by David S. Sytsma and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Baxter, one of the 17th century's most famous Puritans, is known as an author of devotional literature. But he was also skilled in medieval philosophy. In this work, David Sytsma draws on largely unexamined works to present a chronogolical and thematic account of Baxter's relation to the people and concepts involved in the rise of mechanical philosophy in late-17th-century England

The Mechanization of Natural Philosophy

Author : Sophie Roux
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400743440
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mechanization of Natural Philosophy by : Sophie Roux

Download or read book The Mechanization of Natural Philosophy written by Sophie Roux and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-09-26 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mechanisation of Natural Philosophy is devoted to various aspects of the transformation of natural philosophy during the 16th and 17th centuries that is usually described as mechanical philosophy . Drawing the border between the old Aristotelianism and the « new » mechanical philosophy faces historians with a delicate task, if not an impossible mission. There were many natural philosophers who actually crossed the border between the two worlds, and, inside each of these worlds, there was a vast spectrum of doctrines, arguments and intellectual practices. The expression mechanical philosophy is burdened with ambiguities. It may refer to at least three different enterprises: a description of nature in mathematical terms; the comparison of natural phenomena to existing or imaginary machines; the use in natural philosophy of mechanical analogies, i.e. analogies conceived in terms of matter and motion alone.However mechanical philosophy is defined, its ambition was greater than its real successes. There were few mathematisations of phenomena. The machines of mechanical philosophers were not only imaginary, but had little to do with the machines of mecanicians. In most of the natural sciences, analogies in terms of matter and motion alone failed to provide satisfactory accounts of phenomena.By the same authors: Mechanics and Natural Philosophy before the Scientific Revolution (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 254).

The Mechanical World

Author : Beate Krickel
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030036294
Total Pages : 163 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mechanical World by : Beate Krickel

Download or read book The Mechanical World written by Beate Krickel and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-01-04 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph examines the metaphysical commitments of the new mechanistic philosophy, a way of thinking that has returned to center stage. It challenges a variant of reductionism with regard to higher-level phenomena, which has crystallized as a default position among these so-called New Mechanists. Furthermore, it opposes those philosophers who reject the possibility of interlevel causation. Contemporary philosophers believe that the explanation of scientific phenomena requires the discovery of relevant mechanisms. As a result, new mechanists are, in the main, concerned solely with epistemological questions. But, the author argues, their most central claims rely on metaphysical assumptions. Thus, they must also take into account metaphysics, a system of thought concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world around it. This branch of philosophy does indeed matter to the empirical sciences. The chapters investigate the nature of mechanisms, their components, and the ways in which they can bring about different phenomena. In addition, the author develops a novel account of causation in terms of activities. The analysis provides the basis for many further research projects on mechanisms and their relations to, for example, the mind-body problem, realization, multiple realization, natural kinds, causation, laws of nature, counterfactuals, and scientific levels.

A System of Mechanical Philosophy

Author : John Robison
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 770 pages
Book Rating : 4.A/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis A System of Mechanical Philosophy by : John Robison

Download or read book A System of Mechanical Philosophy written by John Robison and published by . This book was released on 1822 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy

Author : Margaret J. Osler
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521524926
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (249 download)

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Book Synopsis Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy by : Margaret J. Osler

Download or read book Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy written by Margaret J. Osler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-06-07 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The difference between Pierre Gassendi's (1592-1655) and René Descartes' (1596-1650) versions of the mechanical philosophy directly reflected the differences in their theological presuppositions. Gassendi described a world utterly contingent on divine will and expressed his conviction that empirical methods are the only way to acquire knowledge about the natural world. Descartes, on the contrary, described a world in which God had embedded necessary relations, some of which enable us to have a priori knowledge of substantial parts of the natural world. In this book, Professor Osler explores theological conceptions of contingency and necessity in the world and how these ideas influenced the development of the mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century. She examines the transformation of medieval ideas about God's relationship to the Creation into seventeenth-century ideas about matter and method as embodied in early articulations of the mechanical philosophy. Refracted through the prism of the mechanical philosophy, these theological conceptualizations of contingency and necessity in the world were mirrored in different styles of science that emerged in the second half of the seventeenth century.

The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution

Author : David Marshall Miller
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 1108420303
Total Pages : 551 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution by : David Marshall Miller

Download or read book The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution written by David Marshall Miller and published by . This book was released on 2022-01-06 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of cutting-edge scholarship on the close interaction of philosophy with science at the birth of the modern age.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science

Author : Paul Humphreys
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190630701
Total Pages : 960 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science by : Paul Humphreys

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science written by Paul Humphreys and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-04 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook provides both an overview of state-of-the-art scholarship in philosophy of science, as well as a guide to new directions in the discipline. Section I contains broad overviews of the main lines of research and the state of established knowledge in six principal areas of the discipline, including computational, physical, biological, psychological and social sciences, as well as general philosophy of science. Section II covers what are considered to be the traditional topics in the philosophy of science, such as causation, probability, models, ethics and values, and explanation. Section III identifies new areas of investigation that show promise of becoming important areas of research, including the philosophy of astronomy and astrophysics, data, complexity theory, neuroscience, simulations, post-Kuhnian philosophy, post-empiricist epistemology, and emergence. Most chapters are accessible to scientifically educated non-philosophers as well as to professional philosophers, and the contributors - all leading researchers in their field -- bring diverse perspectives from the North American, European, and Australasian research communities. This volume is an essential resource for scholars and students.

The Mechanical Mind

Author : Tim Crane
Publisher : Presbyterian Publishing Corp
ISBN 13 : 0203426312
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mechanical Mind by : Tim Crane

Download or read book The Mechanical Mind written by Tim Crane and published by Presbyterian Publishing Corp. This book was released on 2003-04-24 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration of the theories and arguments surrounding the notions of thought and representation. Now in its 2nd edition, Cranes's classic text has introduced thousands to some of the most important ideas in philosophy of mind.

Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy

Author : Niccolò Guicciardini
Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1780239483
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (82 download)

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Book Synopsis Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy by : Niccolò Guicciardini

Download or read book Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy written by Niccolò Guicciardini and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isaac Newton is one of the greatest scientists in history, yet the spectrum of his interests was much broader than that of most contemporary scientists. In fact, Newton would have defined himself not as a scientist, but as a natural philosopher. He was deeply involved in alchemical, religious, and biblical studies, and in the later part of his life he played a prominent role in British politics, economics, and the promotion of scientific research. Newton’s pivotal work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which sets out his laws of universal gravitation and motion, is regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science. Niccolò Guicciardini’s enlightening biography offers an accessible introduction both to Newton’s celebrated research in mathematics, optics, mechanics, and astronomy and to how Newton viewed these scientific fields in relation to his quest for the deepest secrets of the universe, matter theory and religion. Guicciardini sets Newton the natural philosopher in the troubled context of the religious and political debates ongoing during Newton’s life, a life spanning the English Civil Wars, the Restoration, the Glorious Revolution, and the Hanoverian succession. Incorporating the latest Newtonian scholarship, this fast-paced biography broadens our perception of both this iconic figure and the great scientific revolution of the early modern period.

A Companion to Hobbes

Author : Marcus P. Adams
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119634997
Total Pages : 548 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis A Companion to Hobbes by : Marcus P. Adams

Download or read book A Companion to Hobbes written by Marcus P. Adams and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers comprehensive treatment of Thomas Hobbes’s thought, providing readers with different ways of understanding Hobbes as a systematic philosopher As one of the founders of modern political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes is best known for his ideas regarding the nature of legitimate government and the necessity of society submitting to the absolute authority of sovereign power. Yet Hobbes produced a wide range of writings, from translations of texts by Homer and Thucydides, to interpretations of Biblical books, to works devoted to geometry, optics, morality, and religion. Hobbes viewed himself as presenting a unified method for theoretical and practical science—an interconnected system of philosophy that provides many entry points into his thought. A Companion to Hobbes is an expertly curated collection of essays offering close textual engagement with the thought of Thomas Hobbes in his major works while probing his ideas regarding natural philosophy, mathematics, human nature, civil philosophy, religion, and more. The Companion discusses the ways in which scholars have tried to understand the unity and diversity of Hobbes’s philosophical system and examines the reception of the different parts of Hobbes’s philosophy by thinkers such as René Descartes, Margaret Cavendish, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Presenting a diversity of fresh perspectives by both emerging and established scholars, this volume: Provides a comprehensive treatment of Hobbes’s thought in his works, including Elements of Law, Elements of Philosophy, and Leviathan Explores the connecting points between Hobbes’ metaphysics, epistemology, mathematics, natural philosophy, morality, and civil philosophy Offers readers strategies for understanding how the parts of Hobbes’s philosophical system fit together Examines Hobbes’s philosophy of mathematics and his attempts to understand geometrical objects and definitions Considers Hobbes’s philosophy in contexts such as the natural state of humans, gender relations, and materialist worldviews Challenges conceptions of Hobbes’s moral theory and his views about the rights of sovereigns Part of the acclaimed Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, A Companion to Hobbes is an invaluable resource for scholars and advanced students of Early modern thought, particularly those from disciplines such as History of Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Intellectual History, History of Politics, Political Theory, and English.

The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy

Author : Sylvia Berryman
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 113948026X
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy by : Sylvia Berryman

Download or read book The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy written by Sylvia Berryman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been thought that the ancient Greeks did not take mechanics seriously as part of the workings of nature, and that therefore their natural philosophy was both primitive and marginal. In this book Sylvia Berryman challenges that assumption, arguing that the idea that the world works 'like a machine' can be found in ancient Greek thought, predating the early modern philosophy with which it is most closely associated. Her discussion ranges over topics including balancing and equilibrium, lifting water, sphere-making and models of the heavens, and ancient Greek pneumatic theory, with detailed analysis of thinkers such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Hero of Alexandria. Her book shows scholars of ancient Greek philosophy why it is necessary to pay attention to mechanics, and shows historians of science why the differences between ancient and modern reactions to mechanics are not as great as was generally thought.

A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts: Plates

Author : Thomas Young
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts: Plates by : Thomas Young

Download or read book A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts: Plates written by Thomas Young and published by . This book was released on 1845 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Boyle on Fire

Author : William Eaton
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1847144373
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (471 download)

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Book Synopsis Boyle on Fire by : William Eaton

Download or read book Boyle on Fire written by William Eaton and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-05-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosophy of Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is a hot topic in early modern philosophy. Boyle was at the centre of the scientific community of 17th-century England, and an accurate view of the Enlightenment scientific revolution is impossible without recognition of the contributions that he made. Work on Boyle's philosophy is also shedding light on contemporary issues in the philosophy of science - it can help us understand the nature of scientific explanation and the role that the mechanical model of explanation plays in present-day science. Boyle's mechanical philosophy ushered in a new explanatory model for science and even though his corpuscular hypothesis failed, its failure does not entail the failure of the explanatory model of which it was an instance. Boyle on Fire demonstrates these points by examining Boyle's work concerning a method of experiment common in the seventeenth century called Fire Analysis. In the Sceptical Chymist (1661), Boyle attacks elemental theories of chemical explanation primarily by raising objections against Aristotelian and Paracelsian interpretations of fire analysis. The book reconstructs Boyle's corpuscular account of fire analysis and then compares it to these objections. This process reveals those characteristics of mechanical explanations that make them epistemologically superior to elemental theories of chemical explanation, and it is these characteristics that survive the death of the corpuscular hypothesis and have become an enduring feature of the scientific enterprise.

Scientific Models in Philosophy of Science

Author : Daniela M. Bailer-Jones
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822971232
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Scientific Models in Philosophy of Science by : Daniela M. Bailer-Jones

Download or read book Scientific Models in Philosophy of Science written by Daniela M. Bailer-Jones and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2009-09-13 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists have used models for hundreds of years as a means of describing phenomena and as a basis for further analogy. In Scientific Models in Philosophy of Science, Daniela Bailer-Jones assembles an original and comprehensive philosophical analysis of how models have been used and interpreted in both historical and contemporary contexts. Bailer-Jones delineates the many forms models can take (ranging from equations to animals; from physical objects to theoretical constructs), and how they are put to use. She examines early mechanical models employed by nineteenth-century physicists such as Kelvin and Maxwell, describes their roots in the mathematical principles of Newton and others, and compares them to contemporary mechanistic approaches. Bailer-Jones then views the use of analogy in the late nineteenth century as a means of understanding models and to link different branches of science. She reveals how analogies can also be models themselves, or can help to create them. The first half of the twentieth century saw little mention of models in the literature of logical empiricism. Focusing primarily on theory, logical empiricists believed that models were of temporary importance, flawed, and awaiting correction. The later contesting of logical empiricism, particularly the hypothetico-deductive account of theories, by philosophers such as Mary Hesse, sparked a renewed interest in the importance of models during the 1950s that continues to this day. Bailer-Jones analyzes subsequent propositions of: models as metaphors; Kuhn's concept of a paradigm; the Semantic View of theories; and the case study approaches of Cartwright and Morrison, among others. She then engages current debates on topics such as phenomena versus data, the distinctions between models and theories, the concepts of representation and realism, and the discerning of falsities in models.