mechanism (redirected from respiratory control mechanism)

mechanism, philosophical theory about the nature of organic systems, holding that organisms are machines in the sense that they are material systems. Mechanism seeks to explain biological processes, including behavior, within the framework of classical physics and chemistry. The mechanistic approach has caused great controversy and is considered by its opponents, including vitalists (who contend that living organisms must be explained in terms of a mysterious self-determining principle rather than in physical or chemical terms) as inadequate and oversimplified.

Bibliography

See A. R. Anderson, Minds and Machines (1964); R. E. Schofield, Mechanism and Materialism (1969).

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mechanism

In mechanical construction, the means of transmitting and modifying motion in a machine or an assembly of mechanical parts. The chief characteristic of the mechanism of a machine is that all members have constrained motion; that is, the parts can move only in certain ways in relation to each other. Despite its complexity, the mechanism of a machine can always be analyzed as a group of simple basic mechanisms, each of which contains members that transmit motion from one moving link to another. In general, motion is transmitted in one of three ways: by a wrapping connector such as a chain drive or belt drive, by direct contact as in a cam or gear, or by a pin-connected linkage.

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mechanism

Form of materialism that holds that all natural processes can be explained in terms of laws of matter in motion. Upholders of mechanism were mainly concerned with eliminating from science all occult entities, such as substantial form, that could not be empirically observed or mathematically treated. It thus opposed the use of teleological assumptions as explanatory principles in natural science (see teleology). See also atomism.