Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'Thinking About Mechanisms' and 'Preface to 'Dorian Gray''

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18 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
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
Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty
If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
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
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
Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
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
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
We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 6. Value of Art
All art is quite useless [Wilde]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Books are only well or badly written, not moral or immoral [Wilde]
Having ethical sympathies is a bad mannerism of style in an artist [Wilde]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]