mechanical-causality

The chapter explores the foundational role of mechanical causality in natural science, emphasizing that scientific exactitude depends on the principle that identical causes produce identical effects. It highlights the inseparability of mechanical time measurement from scientific progress and technology, illustrating how modern civilization is organized around clocklike precision. The author warns that the dominance of causalism risks reducing the universe and human life to mechanistic predictability, leading to the potential complete mechanization of man.

The chapter explores the nuanced relationship between free will, determinism, and mechanical causality, arguing that while free will in the absolute sense does not exist, human will is neither blind necessity nor mechanical compulsion. It critiques the reduction of human freedom to mechanistic functions, emphasizing that freedom is conditioned by individual disposition and consciousness, and warns against the dehumanizing effects of technological mechanization on labor and human agency.