This paper is a response to the suggestion that processes provide a better framework for interpreting science, biological science especially, than do substances. The philosopher of substance is ill-prepared, it has been suggested, for the question ‘how a combination of processes can maintain the appearance of stability and persistence in an entity that is fundamentally only a temporary eddy in a flux of change’. In response, I defend a plural ontology of process, activity, event and continuant, and show how a sortalist philosophy of substance that makes Hilary Putnam's distinction of ‘realism’ from ‘metaphysical realism’ can treat disputed questions concerning the identity and individuation of colonial siphonophores, slime moulds and plant-colonies.

中文翻译：

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活动、过程、连续、物质、有机体

本文是对以下建议的回应流程为解释科学，尤其是生物科学提供更好的框架物质. 有人建议，物质哲学家对于“过程的组合如何能够在一个本质上只是变化流动中的暂时涡流的实体中保持稳定和持久性的表象”这一问题准备不足。作为回应，我捍卫了过程、活动、事件和连续体的多元本体论，并展示了使希拉里·普特南（Hilary Putnam）区分“现实主义”与“形而上学现实主义”的分类主义实体哲学如何处理有关殖民地身份和个体化的争议问题。虹吸管、粘菌和植物菌落。