Preliminary Remarks on the Organ-Function Relation

Abstract

The organ-function relation has been viewed in various ways in the course of history, starting with the ideological conception of Aristotle for whom the organ is made for the function, up to some XXth century biologists who look upon the relation as one of utility within the frame-work of adaptation-selection processes. The recent introduction of the word ‘teleonomy’ to characterize that relation seems to be quite unnecessary since, in practice, the new term does not add anything significant to the notion of adaptation and its implications in a Darwinian sense, as attached, according to us, to the relation. ‘Adaptation’ is a long-standing term and the one most in harmony with factual as opposed to intentional purposiveness or, in the jargon of molecular genetics, with the randomness-programmation context. Teleology has crept into biophilosophy as a result of an unjustified, often unconscious, overuse of induction, the concept of function being shifted from the part played to the part to be played by an organ. Furthermore, the views proposed here regarding the organ-function relation are in agreement with up-to-date scientific ideas about normality and integration in the organism.