Abstract
Most philosophers adopt an etiological conception of functions, but not one that uniformly explains the functions attributed to material entities irrespective of whether they are natural or man-made. Here, I investigate the widespread idea that a combination of the two current etiological theories, SEL and INT, can offer a satisfactory account of the proper functions of both organisms and artifacts. (Roughly, SEL equates a function with a selected effect and INT with an intentional content). Making explicit what a realist theory of function supposes, I first show that SEL offers a realist theory of biological functions in which these are objective properties of a peculiar sort. I argue next that an artifact function demonstrates the same objective nature as a biological function when it is accounted for by SEL, but not when it is accounted for by INT. I explain why a dual theory of artifact functions admitting both INT and SEL functions is to be dismissed. I establish that neither INT nor SEL alone can account for all artifact functions. Drawing the conclusion that we need a new etiological theory of function, I show how one can overcome the apparent inevitability of INT for some artifact functions. Finally, I outline a new etiological theory of functions that applies equally to biological entities and to artifacts.
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Notes
- 1.
We take here a relatively abstract stance since there are different versions of SEL and INT.
- 2.
SEL comes directly from the theory of function propounded by Larry Wright in 1973. This explains, in part, why what we call here “the selectionist theory” is often simply called “the etiological theory.” There are actually several historical reasons to this identification of the etiological character with the selectionist one. First, the selectionist theories propounded by Millikan and Neander solved some serious difficulties the initial theory of Wright encountered. In particular, they offered the means to make a clear distinction between types and tokens, the absence of which resulted in a very problematic circular relation between cause and effect in Wright’s original definition of function. Second, the focus has been mostly on biological functions where only SEL is needed. For a synthetic presentation of the history of the etiological theories of function, see the introduction of Buller in Buller (1999), 1–27 or Godfrey-Smith (1993).
- 3.
X is a multipurpose term here. It can be used to refer either to a type or to a token. Moreover, it can designate either an entity or a particular trait. The first ambiguity is common; it will be removed when necessary. The second one makes it possible to treat simultaneously the cases where a function is attributed to a type of entity (hearts which have the function to pump blood) and those where it is attributed to a feature possessed by a type of entity (being vividly colored which has the function of making peacocks’ tails attractive to peahens). In the second case, “Xs” replaces a complex phrase such as “in peacocks, the feature of having a tail which is vividly colored.”
- 4.
- 5.
Biological functions are, in fact, proper functions. That is, they are functions attached to a type of organ or organic part, irrespective of the specific uses to which some particular items of the type may have been put by someone or other.
- 6.
For a survey and for a general but self-contained discussion of the major INT theories sustained in the second half of the twentieth century, cf. McLaughlin (2001), Chap. III.
- 7.
- 8.
See the web site of “The Dual Nature of Technological Artifacts” project (http://www.dualnature.tudelft.nl).
- 9.
See Vermaas and Houkes (2003).
- 10.
- 11.
Possibility n°4 (to account for all functions by INT) supposes to embrace a theological perspective as in modern ages.
- 12.
To be fictitious and to be reducible are quite different things. “To be a lucky charm” is fictitious (in a good theory of the world, nothing will be equivalent to this property), but “to have a determinate weight” is by no means fictitious; it is just reducible by definition to mass and attraction. Hempel did not use expressions like “fictitious properties,” but they help summing up his position.
- 13.
Cf. Hempel (1959).
- 14.
Cummins’ theory is not considered here as a possible option because we share the judgment of many philosophers that it does not and cannot account satisfactorily for the normative and teleological aspects of functional attributions. We refer to it now just in order to make more precise what requirements a realist theory of function must meet.
- 15.
A physical disposition is a disposition which results from the physical properties of the item considered. The interest of a functional analysis is indeed for Cummins to offer a reduction to some lower level, the bottom levels being physical ones (see Cummins1973, §III.4).
- 16.
The expression “legitimacy conditions” indicates that the decisive point is not so much how we may in fact use a word as how we intend to use it. The fact that Bill had called a sheep a dog says less of what he thought “dog” might mean than the fact that he wanted to correct his previous statement when he saw better the animal and heard it bleat.
- 17.
See Huneman (Chap. 7, this volume) for a similar assessment of the difference between SYS (or causal-role functions) and SEL (or selected-effects functions). Huneman’s “weak realism” about functions implies likewise that the difference between a mere effect and a function must consist in some objective fact in the world.
- 18.
B is used to name a singular ice cream as well as type of ice cream, those that have the same composition and form than B. Such ambiguities are commonplace, and they are most of the time unproblematic. For instance, “I really enjoy this taste” can be understood as being both about a singular ice cream and about a type.
- 19.
A clear common vision of how the function issue should be addressed and resolved is still missing. For instance, the recent discussion between Thomasson (2007) and Elder (2007) on the nature of both artifact kinds and artifact functions shows an absence of common ground. On the one hand, Elder defends a realist position on artifact kinds and proper functions relying on an ontological analysis of copied kinds as natural kinds (pp. 35–40); on the other hand, Thomasson intends to show that “if function is what is relevant to membership in an artifactual (rather than natural) kind, it must be intended function that is relevant” since the creator’s intentions “are most relevant to determining whether or not her product is in the extension of an artifactual term” (pp. 57–58 and see, in general, pp. 59–63). According to me, we can use this instantiation test to simplify the issue by settling some major points. In this way, one can establish which features of function really need to be accounted for.
- 20.
One can raise the objection that my example does not concern the “primary function”, namely, to hold cigarettes, but some social secondary function. The same thought experiment can be carried out about primary functions, and it will deliver the same verdict. One could, for example, modify in that perspective a nice illustration of function change given by Beth Preston, that of the pipe cleaner that acquired the function of homecrafts or toys for children (Preston 1998, 241). One can imagine the object planned once as a pipe cleaner and once as a toy resulting in the same public situation: it came into use as a toy and not as a pipe cleaner. This could be possible by imagining in the two cases the same, not very clear, advertisement campaign where a grandfather is shown smoking the pipe and surrounded with children and where the device is represented as a funny being that twists itself in all manners.
- 21.
We will show later on that it is, in fact, not sufficient.
- 22.
See also Longy (2009), §4, 61–62.
- 23.
Wright (this volume, 13–14) stresses this point. He also offers nice examples of unplanned artifact features which gained their function through sociohistorical selection. The more telling one is, probably, the presence of separate controls for front and rear brakes in motorcycles.
- 24.
See Vermaas and Houkes (2003), 265–266.
- 25.
- 26.
Here, we are on Vermaas and Houkes’ home ground, that is, rational function attribution. Their investigation (Chap. 11, this volume) is somewhat parallel to ours. Both investigations challenge the common separations between biological and artifact functions and aim at a wide-ranging theory that covers both. However, Vermaas and Houkes explore the question from an epistemological point of view (rational attribution), while I explore it from an ontological point of view. Below, the connection between the two investigations is discussed and specified.
- 27.
See Longy (2009), §5, for a much more detailed analysis.
- 28.
See Longy (2007b) for a more substantial justification.
- 29.
Cf. McLaughlin (2001), 50–53.
- 30.
Vermaas and Houkes (2003) require that the designer’s attribution be justified, which amounts to the same. See Thomasson (2007, 62) for a more recent proposal along this line: in order to succeed in producing an artifact with the intended function, she requires that the creator has a substantively correct concept of the object she intends to make and that she succeeds at imposing on the object most of the features relevant to executing that concept.
- 31.
We have seen that simple devices like cigarette holders can be attributed different functions rationally. Of course, this may seem much more difficult with complex artifacts. What other function could be attributed to an Airbus A320 than being a plane? However, this does not speak against the general conclusion obtained considering more simple cases. It shows only that rational inferences might be very constrained when considering complex artifacts. But the possibility of more than one rational attribution exists also with highly technical artifacts. One can imagine, for example, a kind of plastic, specially planned to make lighter wings, that could also have been thought of for making water evacuation easier and quicker on wings in case of rain because of its low deformability.
- 32.
What is tricky with artifact functions is the fact that the designer’s intention often seems to make all the difference between different possible functions. Two designers can conceive the same object for different purposes, and the two objects will normally not have the same function. One will have, let us suppose, the function of regulating the flow in some system and, the other, the function of eliminating some unwanted by-products in another system. But then, this difference will show objectively: the two objects will appear in different places or situations. Functions are relational properties implying contextual elements. So, it is to be expected that changing the context would change the function. It is the same with biological items: the tissue that has the function of filtering xyz in the kidneys might well serve a different function in the lungs. The difference between the natural case and the artifact one lies simply in the fact that the designer’s by its action can determine in part the context.
- 33.
Of course, some of the arguments that militate for a unitary ontological theory militate also for a unitary epistemological theory. However, even in the case of two unitary wide-ranging theories, one ontological and the other epistemological, the conditions Q for rational attribution – it is rational to attribute function F to X when I know Q – will still greatly differ from the conditions P of possession; X has function F when P. At the epistemological level, identifying designing intentions is clearly decisive when considering artifacts, as Vermaas and Houkes (Chap. 11, this volume) correctly point out, at the ontological level; however, these intentions matter much less if they matter at all.
- 34.
- 35.
Wright (this volume) does not renounce his ambition of an encompassing theory of function’s attribution, but he acknowledges the necessity to emendate his former doctrine in order to account for the differences between function-patterns that are attached to kinds and function-patterns that concern the actions of individual agents.
- 36.
For a little more precision on the technical flaws, see above note 2.
- 37.
See Wright 73, 50 (in Buller).
- 38.
See Mitchell (1989), 218 sq.
- 39.
Wright (1973, 162) writes, for example, “Why is it there?” in some contexts and “What does it do?” in most, unpack into “What consequences does it have that account for its being there?”
- 40.
As it shows still more clearly in the characterization below (see, in particular, condition 3), the etiological condition so understood can apply to historical functions (typical selected effects function) as well as to nonhistorical ones. So, acknowledging, as Bouchard (Chap. 5, this volume) does, that there are both historical and nonhistorical functions does not compel us to be a pluralist about functions, contrary to what he contends.
- 41.
I side with Bigelow and Pargetter (1987), Wimsatt (Chap. 2, this volume, 26), and Bouchard (Chap. 5, this volume, 62) on this issue. Against the classical etiological approach, which is totally backward looking, I propose, as they do, to introduce a forward-looking element in the guise of a probability (or a propensity) in the definition of functions. It should be noted however that rather than a fitness measure or something of the sort, I introduce the probability of having the capacity to produce the functional effect.
- 42.
- 43.
- 44.
See Bedau (1991).
- 45.
See among many others, Boyd 91, 141.
- 46.
It can be that what is needed is a slightly more complex condition, that of having a probability within a determinate range [q, q + ε], such that 0 ≤ q ≤ p ≤ q + e ≤ 1, but we need not consider such subtleties here.
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Longy, F. (2013). Artifacts and Organisms: A Case for a New Etiological Theory of Functions. In: Huneman, P. (eds) Functions: selection and mechanisms. Synthese Library, vol 363. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5304-4_10
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