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The Mechanistic Theory of Matter The Mechanistic Theory of Matter
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The Cartesian Mechanical Philosophy and the Denial of Substantial Form The Cartesian Mechanical Philosophy and the Denial of Substantial Form
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Pierre Gassendi and Mechanistic Atomism Pierre Gassendi and Mechanistic Atomism
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Robert Boyle and Form as Mechanistic Structure Robert Boyle and Form as Mechanistic Structure
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2 Early Modern Mechanistic Atomism and the Concept of Structure
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Published:October 2023
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Abstract
One of the most significant developments that helped usher in early modern science was the mechanistic theory of matter or mechanicism, as it was advocated by natural philosophers such as René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Robert Boyle. What distinguishes mechanicism from its Aristotelian and vitalistic predecessors is its attempt to explain natural phenomena by reducing all higher-level qualities of material bodies to the mechanistic properties of fundamental particles. A correlate of this reductionist perspective is the view that matter is an inert substance devoid of any “force,” inherent motion, or self-organization. In this view, all phenomena and interactions in nature are produced by the impact and collision of particles, which are themselves governed by the fundamental laws of mechanics. This conception of matter cannot account for the existence of chemical properties, since such properties do not exist at the level of fundamental particles. Yet, chemical properties have causal power and in addition govern how distinct substances react and interact with each other. In order to account for such higher-level properties, while still retaining a mechanistic theory of fundamental matter, several early modern natural philosophers posited that concretions of fundamental particles were the elementary chemical units that account for the existence of chemical properties. This chapter will focus on the ideas of Pierre Gassendi and Robert Boyle in this regard, since their conceptions of structure served to usher in complexity within the framework of the early modern particulate theory of matter.
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