Biological and cultural proper functions in comparative perspective
In Ulrich Krohs & Peter Kroes (eds.), Functions in Biological and Artificial Worlds: Comparative Philosophical Perspectives. MIT Press (2009)
Abstract
Both biological traits and artifacts have proper functions. But accounts of proper function are typically based on the biological case. So adapting these accounts to the artifact case requires finding cultural analogues of biological concepts. This can go wrong in two ways. The biological concepts may not pick out either biological or cultural proper functions correctly; or they may have no cultural analogues. I argue that things have gone wrong in the first way with regard to selection and in the second way with regard to fitness. Finally, I argue that the only way forward is to examine the phenomena of reproduction and use in material culture.Author's Profile
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Citations of this work
Análisis funcionales Y explicaciones seleccionales en biología. Una crítica de la Concepción etiológica Del concepto de función.Gustavo Caponi - 2010 - Ideas Y Valores 59 (143):51-72.
Engineering differences between natural, social, and artificial kinds.Eric T. Kerr - 2013 - In Maarten Franssen, Peter Kroes, Pieter Vermaas & Thomas A. C. Reydon (eds.), Artefact Kinds: Ontology and the Human-made World. Synthese Library.
Clases artificiales.Diego Lawler & Jesús Vegas Encabo - 2010 - Azafea: Revista de Filosofia 12:119-147.
References found in this work
Proper function and recent selection.Peter H. Schwartz - 1999 - Philosophy of Science 66 (3):210-222.
The Continuing Usefulness Account of Proper Function.Peter H. Schwartz - 2002 - In Andre Ariew, Robert Cummins & Mark Perlman (eds.), Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology. Clarendon Press.