The clockwork universe and the mechanical hypothesis

Abstract

ABSTRACT It is something of a commonplace that the presence of clockwork throughout early modern Europe was a key technological factor in inspiring an approach to investigation of the natural world characteristic of the New Science and the so-called Mechanical Philosophy. I challenge that truism on two grounds. One is that attempts to account for organic processes by appeal to working artefacts typically drew less on clockwork than on so-called pneumatic devices. Given the importance of explaining the functioning of organisms to any thoroughgoing account of the workings of nature, an analogue that depends on rigid intersecting toothed wheels, springs or pendula had limited ability to suggest how biological nature functions. By contrast, pneumatic devices – working by pressure of water, trapped air and steam – offered resources to suggest how crucial functions of organisms might be designed to work without ongoing intelligent direction. The other is that the appeal to wind-up devices as a model for the independent functioning of the natural world can be found in texts predating the invention of clockwork. Clockwork was both unnecessary and insufficient to indicate how nature might function unassisted.