Overview
- Provides a metaphysical and conceptual analysis of the new mechanistic thinking
- Shows that philosophy of science needs not only pay attention to actual science but also to metaphysics
- Details how metaphysics matters to the empirical sciences
Part of the book series: Studies in Brain and Mind (SIBM, volume 13)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
- Metaphysics of mechanisms
- Philosophy of biology
- Metaphysics of biology
- New mechanistic approach to scientific explanation
- Mechanistic explanation
- Mechanisms in biology
- Mechanisms in neuroscience
- Machamer, Darden, Craver vs. Glennan
- Glennan Philosophy of the life sciences
- Mechanisms in the life sciences
- Mechanisms and functions
- Mechanistic constitution
- Mechanisms causation
- Interlevel Causation
- Biological phenomena
- Mechanistic Non-Reductive Physicalism
- New Mechanistic Approach to the mind-body problem
- Activities and Causation
- Systems Biology
About this book
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.
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Mechanical World
Book Subtitle: The Metaphysical Commitments of the New Mechanistic Approach
Authors: Beate Krickel
Series Title: Studies in Brain and Mind
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03629-4
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-03628-7Published: 23 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-03629-4Published: 04 January 2019
Series ISSN: 1573-4536
Series E-ISSN: 2468-399X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 163
Number of Illustrations: 21 b/w illustrations
Topics: Epistemology, Systems Biology, Neurosciences, Metaphysics, Personality and Social Psychology