Mechanist, << MEHK uh nihst, >> philosophy states that physical phenomena must be explained in terms of laws of cause and effect that describe the motion of matter. Mechanist philosophers believe that all of nature can be understood by describing the size, shape, arrangement, and motion of small particles of matter called atoms or corpuscles. Many mechanists characterize their philosophy as the claim that the world is like a gigantic machine. Just as the interaction of cogs, springs, and wheels makes a machine work, so the interaction of tiny corpuscles or atoms ultimately causes all the different phenomena in nature.
Mechanism is opposed to the philosophical doctrine of teleology. Teleology comes from the Greek word teleos, meaning goal or end. A teleological theory seeks to understand physical phenomena in terms of purposes. For example, these two philosophies would give different answers to the question, “Why does fire travel upward?” A mechanist would explain that the atoms or corpuscles making up the fire collide, bouncing one another upward according to the laws of impact. The teleological answer would be that it is the nature of fire to blaze upward in search of its natural place above the earth.
During the 1600’s, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in England and Rene Descartes in France developed influential mechanistic philosophies as a reaction against teleology. During this time, mechanistic philosophy became an important part of the Scientific Revolution. But in the 1800’s, physicists began to realize that mechanism was inadequate to explain such phenomena as electricity and magnetism. Thus, the original mechanistic goal of explaining all of nature in terms of matter and motion had to be abandoned.
