mechanisticadj.

1884 Nature 21 Aug. 383/1 The series of curves of velocity given for different mechanistic combinations.

1984 J. Epstein Plausible Prejudices (1985) 370 Isn't ‘servicing’, a metaphorical term that imputes a mechanistic nature to female physiology, even more brutal than the word it is meant to soften?

2002 M. D. Greenfield Signalers & Receivers iv. 183 Females would perceive these calls as the most intense ones, and, from a mechanistic perspective, the choice does not entail any central processing of frequencies.

1893 Athenæum 16 Sept. 375/2 The mechanistic view of the phenomena of life.

1904 Westm. Gaz. 3 Dec. 16/3 The mechanistic school.

1915 B. Holmes in Chicago Med. Recorder Mar. 2 (heading) The Mechanistic view of Dementia Precox.

1924 W. B. Selbie Psychol. Relig. 278 On the negative side they have adduced evidence of a kind which makes a merely mechanistic explanation of the universe impossible.

1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. 33 The materialistic (or, better, mechanistic) theory supposes that the variability of human conduct, including speech, is due only to the fact that the human body is a very complex system.

1952 J. Drever Dict. Psychol. 163 Mechanistic theory,..the interpretation of psychological processes on a mechanical basis, and denial of the reality or efficacy of ends and purposes.

1967 R. A. Waldron Sense & Sense Devel. ix. 201 The rather more austere and mechanistic tendency of twentieth-century linguistics has given such phraseology a quaint, old-fashioned air.

1991 N.Y. Times 8 Oct. c5/1 He describes the lamentable application of mechanistic terms to the human condition, as in ‘I'm not programmed to do that.’