ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I sketch the history of mechanistic models of the mental, as related to the technological project of trying to build mechanical minds, and discuss the changing use of these models. In section 2, I introduce the Cartesian notion of mechanism, which shaped the debate in the centuries that followed. Early mechanistic proposals are also connected with early attempts to formulate the computational account of thinking and reasoning, upheld notably by Hobbes and Leibniz. In section 3, associationist and behaviorist models of the mind are sketched, along with attempts to understand the neural system in terms of connections and associations. Early robotic models, built mostly by behaviorists and other students of animal behavior, are also introduced. In section 4, the focus is on early computational and cybernetic models of the mind. In section 5, I deal with computational models of mental mechanisms as proposed by students of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. The history of uses of mechanistic models sheds light on different kinds of explanations of the mental.
