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16562 | We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: The intelligibility of a phenomenon consists in the mechanisms being portrayed in terms of a field's bottom out entities and activities. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7) | |
A reaction: In other words, we understand complex things by reducing them to things we do understand. It would, though, be illuminating to see a nest of interconnected activities, even if we understood none of them. |