Mechanical philosophy

An early modern account of nature that explains physical events through matter in motion and mechanical interactions, rather than occult qualities or intrinsic purposes.

Corpuscularianism: A theory that explains matter through tiny particles whose arrangements and motions produce observable properties. Its particles supplied a model for the moving matter invoked by mechanical explanations.
Scientific Revolution: A major transformation in European study of nature, astronomy, and physics during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Mechanical philosophy developed within this broader transformation of natural knowledge.
Thomas Hobbes: An English philosopher who treated bodies and motion as fundamental to nature and human thought. His materialist system extended mechanical explanation from nature to sensation and political life.
Iatrochemistry: A medical approach that explains bodily processes through chemical reactions and transformations. Its chemical emphasis competed with mechanical accounts of bodily function.
Newtonian mechanics: The classical theory of motion and forces formulated through Newton’s laws and mathematical principles. It preserved mechanical laws while succeeding without a detailed contact mechanism for every force.
Contact mechanics: The study of forces and deformation where bodies touch. Mechanical philosophers favored causal action through contact between bodies.
René Descartes: A French philosopher and mathematician who developed a mechanistic account of nature based on matter and motion. His physics made extended matter and mechanical laws central to explaining the world.
Isaac Newton: An English mathematician and natural philosopher who formulated laws of motion and universal gravitation. His success with mathematical laws challenged strict accounts limited to contact mechanisms.
Mechanical philosophy of biology: The explanation of living bodies through the motions and arrangements of material parts. Physiological mechanism applied mechanical reasoning to organs, circulation, and animal movement.
Universal gravitation: The force of attraction between masses described quantitatively by Newton’s law of gravitation. Gravity’s apparent action at a distance strained strict contact-based mechanism.

Linked from 12 pages