Today, a scientific explanation is not meant to ascribe agency to natural phenomena: we would not say a rock falls because it seeks the center of the earth. Even for living things, in the natural sciences and often in the social sciences, the same is true. A modern botanist would not say that plants pursue sunlight. This has not always been the case, nor, perhaps, was it inevitable. Since the seventeenth century, many thinkers have made agency, in various forms, central to science. The Restless Clock examines the history of ...
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Today, a scientific explanation is not meant to ascribe agency to natural phenomena: we would not say a rock falls because it seeks the center of the earth. Even for living things, in the natural sciences and often in the social sciences, the same is true. A modern botanist would not say that plants pursue sunlight. This has not always been the case, nor, perhaps, was it inevitable. Since the seventeenth century, many thinkers have made agency, in various forms, central to science. The Restless Clock examines the history of this principle, banning agency, in the life sciences. It also tells the story of dissenters embracing the opposite idea: that agency is essential to nature. The story begins with the automata of early modern Europe, as models for the new science of living things, and traces questions of science and agency through Descartes, Leibniz, Lamarck, and Darwin, among many others. Mechanist science, Jessica Riskin shows, had an associated theology: the argument from design, which found evidence for a designer in the mechanisms of nature. Rejecting such appeals to a supernatural God, the dissenters sought to naturalize agency rather than outsourcing it to a "divine engineer." Their model cast living things not as passive but as active, self-making machines. The conflict between passive- and active-mechanist approaches maintains a subterranean life in current science, shaping debates in fields such as evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. This history promises not only to inform such debates, but also our sense of the possibilities for what it means to engage in science-and even what it means to be alive.
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Add this copy of The Restless Clock: a History of the Centuries-Long to cart. $20.00, very good condition, Sold by Moe's Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by The University of Chicago Press.
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Fair. Ex-library with internal markings in pencil Acceptable, Reading copy only, with writing/markings, bumps/creasing, and heavy wear. Standard-sized.
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Add this copy of The Restless Clock: a History of the Centuries-Long to cart. $20.89, very good condition, Sold by Midtown Scholar Bookstore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Harrisburg, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of The Restless Clock: a History of the Centuries-Long to cart. $20.89, fair condition, Sold by Midtown Scholar Bookstore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Harrisburg, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by University of Chicago Press.
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Fair. Acceptable-This is a significantly damaged book. It should be considered a reading copy only. Please order this book only if you are interested in the content and not the condition. May be ex-library. PAPERBACK Standard-sized.
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Good. Size: 9x5x1; Good paperback from a personal collection (NOT ex-library). Black and white illustrations throughout, with eight pages of color plates. Spine is creased, but binding remains intact and sturdy. Light shelfwear to wraps. Pen underlining and marginalia throughout. Ships same or next day from Dinkytown, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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