ETYM Cf. French mécanisme, Latin mechanisma. Related to Mechanic.
Belief that life is explainable by mechanical forces.
In philosophy, a system of adapted parts working together, as in a machine. Mechanists hold that all natural phenomena admit of mechanical explanation, and that no reference to teleology (purpose or design) is necessary. In political philosophy, mechanists (like English thinkers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, and J S Mill) see the state as more or less the sum of the individuals composing it, and not as an entity in its own right (which is organicism).
1. A piece of machinery or a mechanical device; has moving parts that perform some function.
2. Technical aspects of doing something; SYN. mechanics.
3. A natural object resembling a machine in structure and function.
4. The atomic process that occurs during a chemical reaction; SYN. chemical mechanism.