Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Essays on Intellectual Powers 5: Abstraction' and 'Thinking About Mechanisms'

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21 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
16556 Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 5. Universals as Concepts
23651 Universals are not objects of sense and cannot be imagined - but can be conceived [Reid]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / b. Nominalism about universals
23650 Only individuals exist [Reid]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
23649 No one thinks two sheets possess a single whiteness, but all agree they are both white [Reid]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
11874 Real identity admits of no degrees [Reid]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
16562 We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
16563 The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
16555 Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
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]
16559 Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
16564 There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
16561 We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
23652 We must first conceive things before we can consider them [Reid]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 1. Abstract Thought
23648 First we notice and name attributes ('abstracting'); then we notice that subjects share them ('generalising') [Reid]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
1748 Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16558 Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]