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Full Idea
Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular change from start or set-up to finish or termination conditions.
Gist of Idea
Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change
Source
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1)
Book Ref
-: 'Philosophy of Science' [-], p.3
A Reaction
This is their initial formal definition of a mechanism. Note that a mere 'activity' can be included. Presumably the mechanism might have an outcome that was not the intended outcome. Does a random element disqualify it? Are hands mechanisms?
| 16528 | Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16529 | Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16530 | A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16553 | Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16554 | Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16555 | Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16556 | Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16558 | Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16559 | Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16561 | We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16563 | The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16564 | There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16562 | We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |