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Single Idea 16554

[filed under theme 7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes ]

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]

The 21 ideas with the same theme [accepting purposeful sequences of happenings as existents]:

13213 All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle]
15768 An actuality is usually thought to be a process [Aristotle]
15389 In Whitehead 'processes' consist of events beginning and ending [Whitehead, by Simons]
11092 A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine]
12683 Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis]
22626 Process philosophy insists that processes are not inferior in being to substances [Rescher]
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14760 Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider]
8979 Slow and continuous events (like balding or tree-growth) are called 'processes', not 'events' [Simons]
8981 Maybe processes behave like stuff-nouns, and events like count-nouns [Simons]
12836 Fans of process ontology cheat, since river-stages refer to 'rivers' [Simons]
12841 I don't believe in processes [Simons]
14947 Any process can be described as transfer of measurable information [Ladyman/Ross]
23784 Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE]
23790 Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE]
14562 A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum]
19480 Process philosophy places the dynamic nature of being at the centre of our theories [Seibt]
19479 Reductionists identify processes by their 'owner', but tornadoes etc. are processes without owners [Seibt]
19481 Traditionally small things add up to processes, but quantum mechanics reverses this [Seibt]
20468 Quantum mechanics deals with processes, rather than with things [Rovelli]
22629 Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson]