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Full Idea
It is common to speak of functions as properties 'had by' entities, …but they should rather be understood in terms of the activities by virtue of which entities contribute to the workings of a mechanism.
Gist of Idea
Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms
Source
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3)
Book Ref
-: 'Philosophy of Science' [-], p.6
A Reaction
I'm certainly quite passionately in favour of cutting down on describing the world almost entirely in terms of entities which have properties. An 'activity', though, is a bit of an elusive concept.
Related Ideas
Idea 16553 Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
Idea 16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
| 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] |