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.

Frequently asked questions

Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on “Cancel Subscription” - it’s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time you’ve paid for. Learn more here.

At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.

Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.

We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.

Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.

Yes, you can access The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy by Stuart Glennan, Phyllis Illari, Stuart Glennan, Phyllis Illari in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Philosophy History & Theory. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher

Routledge

Year

2017

ISBN

9781317552291

Edition

Topic

Philosophy

Subtopic

Philosophy History & Theory

Cover Page
The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy
The Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy
Title
Copyright
Contents
Contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: mechanisms and mechanical philosophies
Part I Historical perspectives on mechanisms
Part II The nature of mechanisms
Part III Mechanisms and the philosophy of science
Part IV Disciplinary perspectives on mechanisms
Index