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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.
List of contents
- 1: What is the New Mechanical Philosophy?
- 2: Mechanisms
- 3: Models, Mechanisms and How-Explanations
- 4: Mechanisms, Models and Kinds
- 5: Types of Mechanisms
- 6: Mechanisms and Causation
- 7: Production and Relevance
- 8: Explanation: Mechanistic and Otherwise
About the author
Stuart Glennan is the Harry T. Ice Professor of Philosophy at Butler University, and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Glennan's research has centered on topics in the philosophy of science - especially causation, explanation, modelling and the concept of mechanism. He has also written on science education and on the relation between science and religion.
Summary
This volume argues for a new image of science that understands both natural and social phenomena to be the product of mechanisms, casting the work of science as an effort to understand those mechanisms. Glennan offers an account of the nature of mechanisms and of the models used to represent them in physical, life, and social sciences
Additional text
Glennan's book is an ideal place to start your investigation of the New Mechanism. It has a bit of something for everyone. For those not at all familiar with the New Mechanism, the opening chapter situates this movement vis-à-vis recent trends in philosophy of science. ... This is a rich book, very readable, and definitely recommended. ... this will very likely be the go-to book for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses about mechanism and mechanistic explanation for the foreseeable future.
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Glennan's The New Mechanical Philosophy will undoubtedly engender further conversation...The text is certainly a worthwhile read for those interested in metaphysics of science, philosophers of science, and even practitioners in the brain and behavioral sciences. Christopher A. Rickels, Springer Nature
