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Implicit and Explicit Goal-Directedness

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Abstract

In this paper, I develop and defend a theory of what I call ‘implicit goal-directedness’, which is a purely causal or dynamical notion, and can be separated from the notion of ‘explicit goal-directedness’, which implies the representation of a goal-state. I describe the problems that plagued earlier attempts at analyzing goal-directedness in causal/dynamical terms, and then present my own novel solution. I argue that implicit goal-directedness, in the sense presented, plays an important conceptual role in biology and cognitive science, and is distinct, not only from explicit goal-directedness, but also from the other major teleological notion familiar to philosophers of biology: evolutionary function. Indeed, an appreciation of this tripartite distinction is critical for understanding the structure of explanations of behavior in many scientific contexts.

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Notes

  1. The distinction between the teleological notions ‘goal’ and ‘function’ is hard to pin down precisely, although our usage seems to reflect it (Nagel 1977). Structures (e.g. jaws, pituitary glands) have functions but not goals, activities and behaviors (e.g. trying to beat a crossword puzzle, looking for sea shells) often have goals—indeed, are often defined by their goals—even if they don’t have functions. See Nagel (1977) for more discussion of this distinction. It doesn’t really matter anyway here because my notion of goal-directedness is distinct from any articulated notion of function in the literature.

  2. My notion of goal-directedness is also distinct from other notions of functions, such as Cummins’ (1975)—see note #14.

  3. This is similar to a point made by Amundson and Lauder 1994 concerning the functions of anatomical features.

  4. Jackson’s descriptive studies of the dynamics of spider behavior also frequently set the stage for mechanistic explanations. Something general could be said about mechanistic explanation analogous to the point about evolutionary explanation—the level of description of goal-directed behavior in the dynamical sense is conceptually distinct from mechanistic explanations of that behavior, as knowledge of the dynamics can be epistemically prior. However, it is not always prior (sometimes mechanistic understanding or evolutionary hypotheses can drive investigations of the dynamics of behavior), and in many cases there is two-way feedback, as mechanistic investigations inform new, richer understandings of behavior at the dynamical level (Bechtel, personal communication).

  5. Although the selected-effect function of a behavior will usually align with its goal-directedness in the dynamical sense, this is a substantive fact that holds in virtue of the ways that behavior is shaped by evolution and ontogeny. Moreover, the goal-directedness of behavior can deviate from its evolutionary function in certain cases, and a behavior can have the function to produce a result without being directed at that result as a goal in the dynamical sense. These cases will be discussed in Sect. 4.

  6. In the human case, of course, it may be that they are also supposed to explain psychological facts known phenomenologically or introspectively.

  7. Importantly, this difference might not be apparent on a single observation of each ‘chicken’ pecking, if for example the pseudo-chicken were convincingly disguised in feathers (Sommerhoff 1974, p. 18).

  8. I use ‘buffering’ and ‘robustness’ in a generalized sense of their meaning in engineering. Robustness is invariance or insensitivity to perturbations or variations in initial conditions. A more robust result or condition is one that is harder to disrupt or prevent. To buffer a condition or result is to make it more robust with regard to some range of possible perturbations or variations. For example, adding antifreeze to our car's coolant system buffers its functionality against cold temperatures. The operation of a car with antifreeze is more robust with respect to cold temperatures than one with only water as coolant. This usage of ‘robustness’ is distinct from Wimsatt’s (2007) sense of “multiple (independent) means of determination or access to an entity, property, process, result, or theorem” (p. 359). I say ‘epistemically robust’ when I mean ‘robust’ in Wimsatt’s sense.

  9. Sommerhoff’s and Nagel’s accounts both had the additional proviso that the responses must be ‘orthogonal’ to the conditions which elicit them, for a case to count as an instance of goal-directedness; although they define orthogonality in quite different ways, it amounts in both cases to the response being ‘free of’, or not specifically determined in an inevitable or law-like way by the stimulus. Essentially, there has to be a relevant possible contrast case where the behaving system responds differently to a given stimulus. In the chicken example, the relevant contrast can be a fake chicken that does not respond at all, or a weird chicken that responds differently, such as always pecking to the left of the grain, or in a mirrored spot across the axis of its body. Orthogonality helps rule out trivial cases like a pendulum’s swing being ‘directed at the goal’ of returning to the low energy resting position, but it does not help with the cases I present below.

  10. I have perhaps cheated a little here, tweaking your intuitions by describing the hawk’s explicit goal (pleasing its missing master). But it is not strictly necessary that the hawk have this intention. Explicit and implicit goals can come apart—read on.

  11. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this point.

  12. In language that is adapted to my framing the view in terms of ‘dynamical convergence’.

  13. Thanks to Adam Sennet for this example.

  14. Incidentally, I think one probably cannot pick out a nomologically impossible goal without explicit representations either. It takes quite a bit of imagination and creativity to strive against the very laws of nature.

  15. If I am wrong and there is some other way, then perhaps there is another distinct sense of ‘goal-directedness’ that must be added to the mix. That would still not threaten the legitimacy of my account unless my account could somehow be subsumed by it.

  16. Although there are of course exceptions, such as animals that go extended periods without needing food, and animals that disregard safety to defend a colony or their young.

  17. Evolutionary notions of function are often contrasted with ‘Cummins functions’ (e.g. in Godfrey-Smith 1993). A Cummins (1975) function is the role that the capacities of some sub-system play in explaining the capacities of the system of which it is a part. This is neither extensionally nor intensionally equivalent to my notion of goal-directedness: other capacities of systems that do not have goal-directed behavior might be explained in terms of the capacities and interactions of their parts, and an instance of goal-directedness (defined in terms of the specific causal structure, coherent dynamical convergence) may be picked out without reference to its role in explaining any further capacity.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Jim Griesemer, Adam Sennett, Paul Teller, Bernard Molyneux, Bert Baumgaertner, and an anonymous referee for helping me to refine the ideas in this paper.

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Correspondence to Michael A. Trestman.

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Trestman, M.A. Implicit and Explicit Goal-Directedness. Erkenn 77, 207–236 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9379-2

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