Biological Functions: A Critical Review and A Proposal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22370/rhv2022iss19pp395-409Keywords:
teleology, philosophy of biology, etiology, organizational theory, normativityAbstract
This research aims to propose a new theory to account for the functions of biological objects. For this, I will show that the most accepted theories of biological functions fail, and then I will propose a new alternative that overcomes the given counterexamples. The research is divided into the following questions: i) appealing to various counterexamples, noting that there is no robust theory capable of accounting for the phenomenon; finally ii) I will give a minimal provisional / operational theory, which allows us to continue incorporating the functional dimension of the features.
Downloads
References
Aristóteles (2004). I. Buenos Aires: De Bolsillo.
Artiga, M. (2011). Re-organizing organizational accounts of function. Applied Ontology, 6(2), 105-124.
Artiga, M., Martínez, M. (2015). The Organizational Account of Function is an Etiological Account of Function. Acta Biotheoretica, 64(2), 105-117.
Ayala, F., Roberts, A (Eds.) (2010). Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology. Hoboken, Nueva Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
Bigelow, J., Pargetter, R. (1987). Functions. Journal of Philosophy, 84(4), 181-196.
Boorse, C. (1997). A rebuttal on health. En J. M. Humber y R. F. Almeder (Eds), What is Disease? Totowa, New Jersey: Humana Press.
Buller, D. (1999). Function, Selection and Design. Nueva York: State University of New York Press.
Cummins, R. (1975). Functional Analysis. Journal of Philosophy, 72, 741-765.
Davidson, D. (1980) Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Griffiths, P. (1993). Functional Analysis and Proper Function. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44(1993), 409-422.
Gould, S., Vrba, E. S. (1982). Exaptation - a missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology, 8(1), 4-15.
Keller, E. (2010). It Is Possible to Reduce Biological Explanations to Explanations in Chemistry and/or Physics. En F. Ayala y A.
Roberts (Eds.) (2010), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology. Hoboken, Nueva Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
Kingma, E. (2007). What is it to be Healthy. Analysis, 67(294), 128-133.
Lennox, J. (1992). Teleology. En Evelyn Fox Keller y Elisabeth Anne Lloyd (Eds.), Keywords in Evolutionary Biology (pp. 324-333). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lennox, J. (2017). Development. Acta Philosophica, 26(1), 33-52 (2017).
Millikan, R. (1993). White Queen Psychology and Other Essays For Alice. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Nagel, E. (1961). The Structure of Science. Nueva York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Nanay, B. (2010). A Modal Theory of Function. Journal of Philosophy, 107(8), 412-431.
Neander, K. (1991). Functions As Selected Effects: The Conceptual Analyst’s Defense. Philosophy of Science, 58(1991), 168-184.
Papineau, D. (1993) Philosophical Naturalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Papineau, D. (2001). The status of teleosemantics, or how to stop worrying about swampman. En Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 79, 279-89.
Rosenberg, A., McShea, D. W, (Eds.) (2008). Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge.
Saborido, S., Mossio, M., Moreno, A. (2010). La dimensión teleológica del concepto de función biológica desde una perspectiva organizacional. Revista Teorema, 29, 31-56.
Saborido, S., Mossio, M., Moreno, A. (2011). Biological organization and cross-generation functions. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 62(3), 583-606.
Saborido, C., Mossio, M. (2016). Functions, Organization and Etiology: A Reply to Artiga and Martinez. Acta Biotheoretica, 64(3), 263-275.
Tresker, S. (2020). Theoretical and clinical disease and the biostatistical theory. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 82, 101249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2019.10124
Wouters, A (2003). Philosophers on function. Acta Biotheoretica, 51(3), 223-235.
Wright, L. (1973). Functions. Philosophical Review, 82, 139-168.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work after publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
