Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Thinking About Mechanisms', 'The Nature of Possibility' and 'Propositions'

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24 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
13941 Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R]
13942 Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R]
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]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
13945 A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows [Cartwright,R]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism
11003 The best version of reductionist actualism around is Armstrong's combinatorial account [Armstrong, by Read]
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]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
13948 For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R]
13950 People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
13944 We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each [Cartwright,R]
13947 'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
13943 We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said [Cartwright,R]
13946 To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
13951 Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R]
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]