The human machine
The mechanistic philosophy attempts to explore questions about what makes people the way they are (Goldhaber, 2000). Those who see through the mechanistic lens see humans as machines (Pepper, 1970) that passively react to internal and external forces over which they have no control (Goldhaber, 2000). Literally, mechanism is "the physics of motion or the study of mechanics", that describes how parts of a system work together to produce phenomena (Hunt & Ellis, 2004, p. 23). The Human Machine section explores the human through the mechanistic lens, including the following theories:
- Watson's behaviorism: The human as S > R connections
- Operant conditioning
- Skinner's radical behaviorism: External forces drive behavior
- Bandura's social cognitive theory
- Maslow's revolt against the machine