Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Thinking About Mechanisms', 'Essentialists and Essentialism' and 'Does moral phil rest on a mistake?'

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19 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 / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
The distinction between necessary and essential properties can be ignored [Rocca]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
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
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 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]
Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [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]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / c. Purpose of ethics
The 'Ethics' is disappointing, because it fails to try to justify our duties [Prichard]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / c. Particularism
The mistake is to think we can prove what can only be seen directly in moral thinking [Prichard]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / d. Virtue theory critique
Virtues won't generate an obligation, so it isn't a basis for morality [Prichard]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 2. Duty
We feel obligations to overcome our own failings, and these are not relations to other people [Prichard]
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
If pain were instrinsically wrong, it would be immoral to inflict it on ourselves [Prichard]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]