The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy.

Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Mechanics and the mechanical: some problems of terminology -- The critics of prevailing usage -- Some candidate definitions of the 'mechanistic' -- Chapter 2: 'Mechanistic' thought before mechanics? -- Divine versus human technology -- Working artifacts before the fourth century -- Ancient atomism and the machine analogy -- The 'Shortfalls' of Ancient Technology -- The 'exclusion' of ancient mechanics -- 'Against nature' -- Art versus nature -- Wonder versus nature -- Chapter 3: Mechanics in the fourth century -- The scope of ancient Greek mechanics -- Balancing and equilibrium -- Lifting the greater weight with the lesser force -- Hurling armaments -- Imitating living beings -- Lifting water -- Timepieces -- Sphere-making and models of the heavens -- Archytas and the foundation of mechanics -- Aristotle's 'mechanics' of motion -- Conclusion -- Chapter 4: The theory and practice of ancient Greek mechanics -- The Aristotelian Mechanica -- Ctesibius -- Archimedes -- Philo of Byzantium -- Vitruvius -- Hero of Alexandria -- Pappus of Alexandria -- Models of the heavens -- Chapter 5: Ancient Greek mechanics continued: the case of pneumatics -- Pneumatic technology in the post-classical period -- Ancient Greek pneumatic theory -- The status of mechanics revisited: natural or artificial? -- Chapter 6: The philosophical reception of mechanics in.antiquity -- Mechanical theory in natural philosophy -- The theory of pneumatics in natural philosophy -- Pneumatics and medical theory -- Working artifacts and the notion of a self-mover -- Mechanical analogies for the functioning of organisms -- Working artifacts in astronomy -- Mechanical analogies in cosmology -- Conclusion.

Appendix: Ancient mechanics and the mechanical in the seventeenth century -- The discipline of mechanics and the 'mechanization' of philosophy -- The mechanical arts and the 'mechanization' of philosophy -- Bibliography -- Index of passages -- General index.