In the thermodynamic stream of thinking, the specified mechanisms of heat transfer are conduction and radiation. These mechanisms presuppose recognition of temperature; empirical temperature is enough for this purpose, though absolute temperature can also serve. In this stream of thinking, quantity of heat is defined primarily through calorimetry.
Though its definition of them differs from that of the mechanical stream of thinking, the empirical stream of thinking nevertheless presupposes the existence of adiabatic enclosures. It defines them through the concepts of heat and temperature. These two concepts are coordinately coherent in the sense that they arise jointly in the description of experiments of transfer of energy as heat.