Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'Thinking About Mechanisms' and 'Human Freedom and the Self'

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20 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
21982 I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
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]
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]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 4. For Free Will
3444 If actions are not caused by other events, and are not causeless, they must be caused by the person [Chisholm]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
9268 If free will miraculously interrupts causation, animals might do that; why would we want to do it? [Frankfurt on Chisholm]
3446 For Hobbes (but not for Kant) a person's actions can be deduced from their desires and beliefs [Chisholm]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 4. Responsibility for Actions
3442 Responsibility seems to conflict with events being either caused or not caused [Chisholm]
3443 Desires may rule us, but are we responsible for our desires? [Chisholm]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata
3445 Causation among objects relates either events or states [Chisholm]
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]