Keywords
nová mechanistická filosofie
filosofie vědy
komplexity
How to Cite
Abstract
The article provides systematic critical review of the notion of mechanism in the new mechanical philosophy (NMP). First, the origins and main principles of NMP are described. It is shown that NMP has originated mainly as a result of critique of logical empiricism. Then the main defining features of mechanism (responsibility for phenomenon, entities and activities, and their organizations) are specified and described in-depth. The article concludes with strong and weak points of NMP. It is argued that NMP provides a new and more realistic perspective on how science is actually realized, and how discoveries happen. It also has constructive normative appeal as it encourages scientists to look for mechanisms that can actually explain some phenomena. At the same time, however, in explaining complex phenomena the heuristics of decomposition and localization must be accompanied by other, more dynamic approaches.
Since 2019, TEORIE VĚDY / THEORY OF SCIENCE journal provides open access to its content under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Authors who publish in this journal agree that:
- Authors retain copyright and publication rights without restrictions and guarantee the journal the right of first publishing. All published articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows others to share this work under condition that its author and first publishing in this journal was acknowledged.
- Authors may enter into other agreements for non-exclusive dissemination of work in the version in which it was published in the journal (for example, publishing it in a book), but they have to acknowledge its first publication in this journal.
- Authors are allowed and encouraged to make their work available online (for example, on their personal websites, social media accounts, and institutional repositories) as such a practice may lead to productive exchanges of views as well as earlier and higher citations of published work.
There are no author fees, no article processing charges, or submission charges.
The journal allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of its articles and allows readers to use them for any other lawful purpose.
A summary of the open access policy is also available in the Sherpa Romeo database.