Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Mechanistic Explanations in Physics and Beyond pp 33–46Cite as

Old and New Mechanistic Ontologies

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: European Studies in Philosophy of Science ((ESPS,volume 11))

Abstract

The concept of mechanistic philosophy dates back to the beginning of the early modern period. Among the commonalities that some of the conceptions of the main contemporary representatives share with those of the leading early modern exponents is their ontological classification: as regards their basic concepts, both contemporary and early modern versions of mechanism can be divided into monist and dualist types. Christiaan Huygens’ early modern mechanistic explanation of non-material forces and Stuart S. Glennan’s contemporary conception of mechanism will serve as examples of monism. As examples of dualism, I will discuss Isaac Newton’s early modern mechanistic philosophy of nature and the contemporary conception of mechanism proposed by Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, and Carl F. Craver. With the ontological commonalities are associated further characteristic features of the respective types that concern, among other things, the respective understandings of fundamental theories and evaluations of scientific practice. The ontological continuity of the types does not play any role in contemporary discussions of the history of mechanistic philosophy. On my assessment the distinction between monism and dualism remains an unsolved problem and its persistence is an indication that this distinction is a fundamental one.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Levy and Bechtel 2016 use the term “mechanism 1.0” to refer to some of the commonalities. Illari and Williamson 2012, Craver and Tabery 2015, Glennan 2016, and Glennan and Illari 2017 suggest minimal definitions of mechanism that resemble each other. Andersen 2014 argues against a unified concept of contemporary mechanism.

  2. 2.

    See Schiemann 1997 for the orientation to physical mechanics, Mumford 1981 for the machine metaphor, Dijksterhuis 1956 for the mathematization of scientific knowledge.

  3. 3.

    Nicholson 2012, 154.

  4. 4.

    For example, Glennan 1992, 12ff., Craver and Darden 2005, and Bechtel 2006, 20ff..

  5. 5.

    See n. 1.

  6. 6.

    Williamson 2011.

  7. 7.

    Schiemann 2009, 15ff. and 33ff.

  8. 8.

    For example, Illari and Williamson 2012, and Glennan 2016.

  9. 9.

    Machamer et al. 2000 (hereafter cited as “MDC 2000”), 4f.

  10. 10.

    See the definitions of Kirchner 1833, 212f., and Brugger (Ed.) 1950, 213.

  11. 11.

    On Huygens’ mechanistic philosophy of nature, see Lasswitz 1890, Vol. 2, 341ff., Westman 1980, Snelders 1980 and Gabbey 1980. On the following, see Schiemann 1997, 95ff.

  12. 12.

    Huygens 1896, 5ff.

  13. 13.

    Loc. cit., 31f.

  14. 14.

    Ibid. See Lasswitz 1890, Vol. 2, 360ff.

  15. 15.

    Letter from Huygens to Leibniz of 11.7.1692, in Leibniz 1849ff., Vol. 2, 139.

  16. 16.

    See Dühring 1873, 165ff. and Dugas 1957, 176ff.

  17. 17.

    Glennan 1992, 13ff. and 138.

  18. 18.

    Loc. cit., 174f.

  19. 19.

    Andersen 2014, 281, points to Glennan’s greater indebtedness to the history of mechanism in comparison to MDC (and Bechtel).

  20. 20.

    Glennan 1992, 19ff.

  21. 21.

    The assumption of inertial motion presupposes the existence of matter independent of forces. However, forces only work between material bodies. In this respect, dualistic mechanism exhibits an affinity with Cartesian metaphysics, in which non-human creatures do not have minds, but the mind occurs in the experienceable world only together with the human body. See n. 50.

  22. 22.

    On this and the following, see, Thackray 1970, Westfall 1971, Freudenthal 1982 and Schiemann 2009, 35ff.

  23. 23.

    Loc. cit., 261.

  24. 24.

    Newton 1726, 388.

  25. 25.

    Loc. cit., 237.

  26. 26.

    Newton 1704, 385.

  27. 27.

    On the polarity of the two principles in Newton, see Freudenthal 1982, 40ff. and 265ff.

  28. 28.

    Glennan 1996, 20f. Similarly, Bechtel 2006, 20ff., describes the history of mechanism from the beginning of the modern era to the present day as a process of progressive detachment from initially restrictive mechanical requirements.

  29. 29.

    Correspondingly also Gebharter and Kaiser 2014, 63, Kaiser and Krickel 2016, 22, and Kaiser 2017, 116 and 121f. According to Torres 2009, 238, Glennan could also dispense with interactions as a matter of ontology: “Glennan’s ontology posits entities as ontologically basic with interactions serving a solely descriptive purpose in mechanism models.” However, this seems to contradict Glennan’s own account of his position (see quotation to n. 31). An example of Glennan’s own monistic definition of mechanism can be found in Glennan 2002, S352: “mechanisms are collections of parts.”

  30. 30.

    See the definitions of mechanism in Glennan 1992, 24, and Glennan 1996, 52.

  31. 31.

    For example, Glennan 1992, 30: “This description would lead to a decomposition of the system in which the parts were electrons, molecular lattices, or other such entities.”

  32. 32.

    Cf. Glennan 1992, 31f.

  33. 33.

    Glennan 1992, 38f.

  34. 34.

    In this way, the concept of force is traced back to matter only in a formal sense, however, but is not explained in the sense of early modern materialist monism. Gustav Kirchhoff defended a similar approach in his mechanics (Kirchhoff 1876).

  35. 35.

    Glennan 1992, 34ff. The forces described by the electromagnetic field were also an object of mechanism in the early modern period. Thus, Johannes Kepler assumed that magnetic forces operate between moving masses, as Newton was aware (Wilson 2002, 204f). Pierre Gassendi tried to explain these forces in mechanistic terms (Fischer 2013).

  36. 36.

    Glennan 2002, S344ff., Woodward 2000.

  37. 37.

    MDC 2000, 7.

  38. 38.

    Glennan 2002, S345.

  39. 39.

    Since 1992, Glennan defends a claim to validity for his theory of explanation that encompasses scholary knowledge as a whole.

  40. 40.

    Glennan 1992, 138ff., Glennan 2002, 18. See Torres 2009, 238 and Williamson 2011, 429ff. However, Glennan 2016, 814, concedes that there also cannot be any fundamental level.

  41. 41.

    Glennan 1992, 138. Cf. n. 17 and Glennan 2002, 18.

  42. 42.

    Glennan 2016, 799, referring to Glennan (forthcoming).

  43. 43.

    Glennan 2016, 799, does not attach any special importance to the difference between his concept of interaction and the concept of activity that he still criticized in Glennan 2010, 320ff. Having distanced himself in MDC 2000 from Glennan’s and Bechtel’s concept of interaction, Craver — in Craver and Tabery 2015, stressing the importance of scientific practice for mechanism — declares the differences between the three groups of the main representatives to be bridgeable.

  44. 44.

    MDC’s Mechanism has been characterized in various places as dualism, e.g. Tabery 2004, 2, Torres 2009, 233ff., Illari and Williamson 2013, 69ff., and Kaiser 2017, 116 and 121–124.

  45. 45.

    According to Glennan 2010, 320f., MDC not only classify his own conception under substantivalism but also that of Bechtel and Richardson 1993.

  46. 46.

    Rescher 1996.

  47. 47.

    See Williamson 2011, Illari and Williamson 2013 and Andersen 2014. Levy and Bechtel 2016, 14, nevertheless identify the orientation to process ontology as an option for the future development of mechanism (“mechanism 2.0”).

  48. 48.

    MDC 2000, 5.

  49. 49.

    Tabery 2004, 10f.

  50. 50.

    In modern dualism, this independence is not entirely symmetrical. See n. 21. Descartes’ dualism postulates bodies without mind (non-human organisms) and mind without a body, i.e. human souls, but in human beings minds do not occur without bodies. For contemporay mechanism, Illari and Williamson 2012, 130f., show that activities are conceivable without entities and entities without activities.

  51. 51.

    Glennan 2010, 321 points out this proximity when he treats the concepts of interaction and activity as interchangeable. “Where MDC speak of entities and activities, … Glennan speak[s] of parts and interactions” (ibid.).

  52. 52.

    Craver 2007, 64.

  53. 53.

    MDC 2000, 4, 7, and 13f.

  54. 54.

    Loc. cit., 13.

  55. 55.

    As motivation for the dualistic approach to activities they specify ontological, descriptive, and epistemic adequacy (loc. cit., 4)—the last of which I have not discussed.

  56. 56.

    According to Andersen 2014, 275, MDC belong to the group of “mechanisms as integral to scientific practice,” Glennan, by contrast, to the group of “mechanisms as an ontology of the world.”

  57. 57.

    According to Cassirer, what sets early modern mechanism apart is the “logical primacy” of the traditional conception of substance (Cassirer 1923, 8). Today, by contrast, the ontological perspective is just one aspect among others, see n. 42 and 54 and Glennan 2016, 796. At the same time there is an ontological continuity of mechanistic explanations from early modern science to current scientific practice, see Falkenburg in Chapter I.4 of this volume.

  58. 58.

    This can be interpreted as a renunciation of the ontological completeness of explanations. From an epistemic perspective, mechanism during the nineteenth century in addition relinquished the claim to absolute truth when mechanistic explanations are posited as having only hypothetical validity. See Schiemann 2009.

  59. 59.

    This is also suggested by the physical theories of the very small, which (in the standard model) divide all elementary particles into the two classes of material particles (Fermions) and interaction particles (Bosons). For an introduction, see Carroll 2013 and Hauschild 2016.

References

  • Andersen, H. 2014. A Field Guide to Mechanisms: Part I and II. Philosophy Compass 9: 274–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bechtel, W. 2006. Discovering Cell Mechanisms: The Creation of Modern Cell Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bechtel, W., and R.C. Richardson. 1993. Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brugger, W., ed. 1950. Philosophisches Wörterbuch. Freiburg: Herder.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, S. 2013. The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World. London: Oneworld.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassirer, E. 1923. Substance and Function. Chicago. London: Open Court.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craver, C.F. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Craver, C.F., and L. Darden. 2005. Introduction: Mechanisms in Biology. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 36C (2): 233–244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. In Search of Mechanisms: Discovery Across the Life Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Craver, C.F., and J.G. Tabery. 2015. Mechanisms in Science. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E.N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/science-mechanisms [07.04.2017].

  • Dijksterhuis, E.J. 1956. Die Mechanisierung des Weltbildes. Trans. H. Habicht. Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dugas, R. 1957. A History of Mechanics. London: Routledge & Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dühring, E.K. 1873. Kritische Geschichte der allgemeinen Principien der Mechanik. Berlin: T. Grieben.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, S. 2013. Pierre Gassendi. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E.N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gassendi [07.04.2017].

  • Freudenthal, G. 1982. Atom und Individuum im Zeitalter Newtons. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gabbey, A. 1980. Huygens and Mechanics. In Studies on Christiaan Huygens: Invited Papers from the Symposium on the Life and Work of Christiaan Huygens, ed. Bos et al., 166–169. Amsterdam, 22–25 August 1979, Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gebharter, A., and M.I. Kaiser. 2014. Causal Graphs and Biological Mechanisms. In Explanation in the Special Sciences: The Case of Biology and History, ed. M.I. Kaiser et al., 55–86. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Glennan, S.S. 1992. Mechanisms: Models, and Causation. Ph.D. dissertation. Chicago: University of Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1996. Mechanisms and the Nature of Causation. Erkenntnis 44 (1): 49–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation. Philosophy of Science 69 (S3): S342–S353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010. Mechanisms. In The Oxford Handbook of Causation, ed. H. Beebee, 315–325. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016. Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy. In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, ed. P. Humphreys et al., 796–816. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. forthcoming. The New Mechanical Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glennan, S.S., and P. Illari. 2017. Varieties of Mechanisms. In The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy, ed. S. Glennan and P. Illari, 91–103. New York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hauschild, M. 2016. Neustart des LHC: CERN und die Beschleuniger: Die Weltmaschine anschaulich erklärt. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Huygens, Ch. 1896. Abhandlung über die Ursache der Schwere. Trans. and ed. R. Mewes. Berlin: Albert Friedländer’s Druckerei.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1977. The Motion of Colliding Bodies. Trans. R.J. Blackwell. In Isis 68(4): 574–597.

    Google Scholar 

  • Illari, P., and J. Williamson. 2012. What Is a Mechanism? Thinking about Mechanisms 'across' the Sciences. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (1): 119–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. In Defence of Activities. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 44 (1): 69–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ivarola, L., et al. 2013. Expectations-based Processes – An Interventionist Account of Economic Practice: Putting the Direct Practice of Economics on the Agenda of Philosophy Economics. Economic Thought 2 (2): 20–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaiser, M.I. 2017. The Components and Boundaries of Mechanisms. In The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy, ed. S. Glennan and P. Illari, 116–130. New York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kaiser, M.I., and B. Krickel. 2016. The Metaphysics of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (3): 1–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirchhoff, G. 1876. Vorlesungen über Mechanik. Bd. 1 der Vorlesungen über mathematische Physik, ed. W. Wien. Leipzig: B.G. Taubner, fourth edition, 1897.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirchner, F. 1833. Wörterbuch der Philosophischen Grundbegriffe. Heidelberg: Georg Weiss Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lasswitz, K. 1890. Geschichte der Atomistik vom Mittelalter bis Newton. 2 vols, reprint, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leibniz, G.W. 1849 ff. Mathematische Schriften, ed. C.J. Gerhardt. 7 vols. Berlin: H. W. Schmidt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, A., and W. Bechtel. 2016. Towards Mechanism 2.0. Expanding the Scope of Mechanistic Explanation. In PSA 2016. The 25th Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/12567/ [05.01.2018].

  • Machamer, P.K., L. Darden, and C.F. Craver. 2000. Thinking about Mechanisms. Philosophy of Science 67 (1): 1–25 (abbreviated as “MDC 2000”).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mumford, L. 1981. Mythos der Maschine: Kultur, Technik und Macht. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newton, I. 1704. Opticks. In Newton, I. 1779 ff. Opera omnia, ed. S. Horsley, Vol. IV, 1–264. London: Joannes Nichols.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1726. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The third Ed. with variant readings. Ass. and ed. A. Koyré and I.B. Cohen. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1999 ff. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. A New Translation. Trans. I.B. Cohen and A.Whitman. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, D.J. 2012. The Concept of Mechanism in Biology. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part C 43 (1): 152–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rescher, N. 1996. Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiemann, G. 1997. Wahrheitsgewissheitsverlust: Hermann von Helmholtz’ Mechanismus im Anbruch der Moderne. Eine Studie zum Übergang von klassischer zu moderner Naturphilosophie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Hermann von Helmholtz’s mechanism: The Loss of Certainty: A Study on the Transition from Classical to Modern Philosophy of Nature. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snelders, H.A.M. 1980. Christiaan Huygens and the Concept of Matter. In Studies on Christiaan Huygens: Invited papers from the Symposium on the Life and Work of Christiaan Huygens, ed. Bos et al., 104–125, Amsterdam, 22–25 August 1979, Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tabery, J. 2004. Synthesizing Activities and Interactions in the Concept of a Mechanism. Philosophy of Science 71 (1): 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thackray, A. 1970. Atoms and Power: An Essay on Newtonian Matter-Theory and the Development of Chemistry. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Torres, P. 2009. A Modified Conception of Mechanisms. Erkenntnis 71 (2): 233–251.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Westfall, R.S. 1971. Force in Newton’s Physics. London/New York: Macdonald and Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westman, R.S. 1980. Huygens and the Problem of Cartesianism. In Studies on Christiaan Huygens: Invited papers from the Symposium on the Life and Work of Christiaan Huygens, ed. Bos et al., Amsterdam, 22–25 August 1979, Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, J. 2011. Mechanistic Theories of Causality Part I. Philosophy Compass 6 (6): 421–432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, C. 2002. Newton and Celestial Mechanics. In The Cambridge Companion to Newton, ed. I.B. Cohen, 202–226. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Woodward, J. 2000. Explanation and Invariance in the Special Sciences. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (2): 197–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

I want to thank Stuart Glennan for his comments to an earlier version and Ciaran Cronin for his translation of the German version of this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

    Gregor Schiemann

Authors
  1. Gregor Schiemann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gregor Schiemann .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany

    Brigitte Falkenburg

  2. Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

    Gregor Schiemann

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Schiemann, G. (2019). Old and New Mechanistic Ontologies. In: Falkenburg, B., Schiemann, G. (eds) Mechanistic Explanations in Physics and Beyond. European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10707-9_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation