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Full Idea
Activities can be identified spatiotemporally, and individuated by rate, duration, and types of entity and property that engage in them. They also have modes of operation, directionality, polarity, energy requirements and a range.
Gist of Idea
Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range
Source
Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3)
Book Ref
-: 'Philosophy of Science' [-], p.5
A Reaction
This is their attempt at making 'activity' one of the two central concepts of ontology, along with 'entity'. A helpful analysis. It just seems to be one way of slicing the cake.
Related Idea
Idea 16553 Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [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] |
| 16528 | Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16555 | Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [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] |
| 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] |
| 16564 | There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16563 | The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 16562 | We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |