NDLI: In Defence of Activities

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Illari, Phyllis Williamson, Jon
Copyright Year	2013
Abstract	In this paper, we examine what is to be said in defence of Machamer, Darden and Craver’s (MDC) controversial dualism about activities and entities (Machamer, Darden and Craver’s in Philos Sci 67:1–25, 2000). We explain why we believe the notion of an activity to be a novel, valuable one, and set about clearing away some initial objections that can lead to its being brushed aside unexamined. We argue that substantive debate about ontology can only be effective when desiderata for an ontology are explicitly articulated. We distinguish three such desiderata. The first is a more permissive descriptive ontology of science, the second a more reductive ontology prioritising understanding, and the third a more reductive ontology prioritising minimalism. We compare MDC’s entities-activities ontology to its closest rival, the entities-capacities ontology, and argue that the entities-activities ontology does better on all three desiderata.
Starting Page	69
Ending Page	83
Page Count	15
File Format	PDF
ISSN	09254560
Journal	Journal for General Philosophy of Science
Volume Number	44
Issue Number	1
e-ISSN	15728587
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2013-04-14
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Activities MDC Machamer, Darden and Craver Capacities Ontology Metaphysics of science Understanding Minimalism Philosophy of Science History Philosophy of Education Methodology of the Social Sciences Social Sciences
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy Social Sciences History and Philosophy of Science

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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