27 ideas
291 | Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age [Plato] |
15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
16554 | Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16556 | Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
16562 | We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
16563 | The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
16555 | Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
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] |
16564 | There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16561 | We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
293 | Being unafraid (perhaps through ignorance) and being brave are two different things [Plato] |
15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |
16558 | Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |