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The book review discusses Stavros Ioannidis and Stathis Psillos's book "Mechanisms in Science: Method or Metaphysics?" The reviewer praises the book for its clear philosophical arguments, scientific case studies, and historical context. The central theses of the book are that contemporary mechanistic philosophy of science often includes unnecessary metaphysical commitments and that an account of mechanism as a causal pathway without these commitments is sufficient. The reviewer agrees with these theses but raises some points of disagreement regarding the concept of constitutive relevance. Overall, the reviewer recommends the book to philosophers of science interested in the topic of mechanism. [Extracted from the article]

When Cicero referred to the I studia humanitatis i , he meant the basis of the general education ( I paideia i ) of a cultivated man.[10] Incidentally, Kristeller's definition was also the cause of an unpleasant exchange that I, as a first-year graduate student studying Ficino, had with a senior student in a seminar on humanism, who assured me that Ficino was simply not a humanist. While their research focuses solely on Ficino's important contribution to Renaissance Platonism, Susan Byrne's I Ficino in Spain i charts the broad reception of Ficino's works in early modern Spanish literature: in her opening lines, she introduces a new characterization by calling Ficino a "Christian theologian and Neoplatonist philosopher" - some might argue that these two categories are mutually exclusive, but they are both applicable to Ficino. Robichaud relates not only how Ficino doodled a portrait of Plato in an initial capital I P i in Plato's name in a manuscript that he copied but also how Ficino is presented in illuminated manuscripts of his own works in relation to other groups or persons that can be identified as ancient Greeks or contemporary humanists. Modern humanism, as practiced as a life stance by several international organizations (such as Humanists International), seems to have found its inspiration in this vision of Renaissance humanism, when it stresses the worth, dignity, and autonomy of the individual, and its role in an evolution toward secularism and modernity.[5] Paul Oskar Kristeller, who studied under the philosopher Martin Heidegger from 1931 but fled from Germany in 1933, was welcomed in Italy by the above-mentioned Giovanni Gentile, who secured for him a position as lecturer in German at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. [Extracted from the article]

The article offers poetry criticism of the poem "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman, and "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. It reveals the same underlying mechanism and brings together scattered elements studied separately; and mentions about the description of a voluntary self- sacrifice, symbolically committed by the poets themselves.

, edited by Those already familiar with mechanism may be less interested in this historical angle and more concerned with contemporary disputes, but these chapters argue convincingly that there is plenty to learn about mechanism from its antecedents. In Chapter 16, Halina provides a crucial - and critical - account of the limits of mechanistic explanation, raising similar criticisms to those outlined by Andersen in Chapter 12, by arguing that mechanism cannot totally subsume non-mechanistic modes of explanation. While more traditional computational approaches (Zednik, Chapter 29; Piccinini, Chapter 33) may be more immediately compatible with mechanism as it stands, this would be a poor reason not to attempt integration. [Extracted from the article]

Highlights from the article: Principles of weighing water: Alan Chalmers: One hundred years of pressure: Hydrostatics from Stevin to Newton. "Hydrostatics from Stevin to Newton" runs the subtitle of I One hundred years of pressure i , and this it is indeed: a largely linear story from Stevin to Newton, via Pascal and Boyle, with a few excursions to Galileo and Torricelli, and Descartes somewhere in between. As for Pascal, Chalmers points out that he did not refer to Stevin's hydrostatics but adds that 'there is no doubt that Pascal was familiar it and owed significant debt to it' (84). Stevin's causes - "oirsaecken" as he named them - are much like the intermediate causes Chalmers places at the center of his account of seventeenth-century hydrostatics.

The article reviews the book "Descartes on Forms and Mechanisms," by Helen Hattab.

The article reviews the book "Hermann von Helmholtz's Mechanism: The Loss of Certainty," by Gregor Schiemann.

The article reviews the book "Ancient Engineer's Inventions: Precursors to the Present," by Cesare Rossi, Flavio Russo and Ferruccio Russo.

The article reviews the book "The Restless Clock: A history of the centuries-long argument over what makes living things tick" by Jessica Riskin.

The article reviews the book "Minds and Mechanisms: Philosophical and Computational Models," by Margaret A. Boden.