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Mechanics

from ENTRIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2016

Alan Gabbey
Affiliation:
Barnard College, Columbia University
Lawrence Nolan
Affiliation:
California State University, Long Beach
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Summary

In Scholastic manuals, natural philosophy (physics) was typically defined as “the science of natural bodies, in so far as they are natural.” This means that natural philosophy in the Peripatetic tradition did not deal with artifacts qua artificial. It did not share the concerns of the mechanical arts in general or of mechanics in particular. Up to and including Descartes’ time, mechanics in one sense was concerned with the construction and operation of machines and other artifacts designed to move terrestrial things against nature (contra naturam) and for human ends. However, from the time of the Mechanica, written by a member of the Peripatetic school (Strato of Lampsacus?), and of Pappus's Collections (book 8), mechanics was also the theoretical discipline that dealt mathematically with problems relating to the construction and use of machines. Mechanics in this sense was often also called the science of weights, or statics. Before a mechanical device begins to act on something, there is stasis, a state of rest in which opposing forces are in equilibrium before being unbalanced by an external force. In statics, one calculated the relative strengths of such forces to account for states of equilibrium (equal weights on a balance) and of disequilibrium (budging a boulder with a lever). In the Renaissance, which saw the rediscovery of the Mechanica, mechanics became a “middle science” operating between mathematics and physics, in which the operations of machines were treated in a mathematical way (Laird 1986). In the Collegio Romano there arose the important question of whether this middle science could be fully integrated into the natural philosophy of the Scholastics to produce a true middle science that was not subalternated to mathematics (Wallace 1984, 202–7). The question is reflected in a professional contrast of the period: treatises on mechanics were written by mathematicians or engineers, not by philosophers within the Scholastic tradition. Not until the Newtonian eighteenth century did the question receive a positive answer, though one that was seriously qualified by considerations that cannot be addressed here.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

Berryman, Sylvia. 2009. The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabbey, Alan. 1996. “The Principia Philosophiae as a Treatise in Natural Philosophy,” in Descartes: Principia Philosophiae (1644–1994). Atti del Convegno per il 350° anniversario della pubblicazione dell'opera. Parigi, 5–6 maggio 1994, Lecce, 10–12 novembre 1994, ed. Armogathe, J.-R. and Belgioioso, G.. Naples: Vivarium, 517–29.Google Scholar
Gabbey, Alan. 1993. “Descartes's Physics and Descartes's Mechanics: Chicken and Egg?,” in Essays on the Philosophy and Science of René Descartes, ed. Voss, S.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 310–23.Google Scholar
Garber, Daniel. 1993. “Descartes and Experiment in the Discourse and the Essays,” in Essays on the Philosophy and Science of René Descartes, ed. Voss, S.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 288–310.Google Scholar
Laird, W. R. 1986. “The Scope of Renaissance Mechanics,” Osiris 2: 43–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Lawrence, and Drake, Stillman. 1971. “The Pseudo-Aristotelian Questions of Mechanics in Renaissance Culture,” Studies in the Renaissance 18: 65–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, William. 1984. Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo's Science.Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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  • Mechanics
  • Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
  • Book: The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
  • Online publication: 05 January 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894695.167
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  • Mechanics
  • Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
  • Book: The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
  • Online publication: 05 January 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894695.167
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Mechanics
  • Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
  • Book: The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
  • Online publication: 05 January 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894695.167
Available formats
×