The Organizational Account of Function is an Etiological Account of Function
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The Organizational Account of Function is an Etiological Account of Function Marc Artiga1 • Manolo Martı´nez2
Received: 8 July 2014 / Accepted: 4 May 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract The debate on the notion of function has been historically dominated by dispositional and etiological accounts, but recently a third contender has gained prominence: the organizational account. This original theory of function is intended to offer an alternative account based on the notion of self-maintaining system. However, there is a set of cases where organizational accounts seem to generate counterintuitive results. These cases involve cross-generational traits, that is, traits that do not contribute in any relevant way to the self-maintenance of the organism carrying them, but instead have very important effects on organisms that belong to the next generation. We argue that any plausible solution to the problem of crossgenerational traits shows that the organizational account just is a version of the etiological theory and, furthermore, that it does not provide any substantive advantage over standard etiological theories of function. Keywords Function Organizational account Etiological account Crossgenerational trait Epiphenomenalism
1 Introduction Our everyday talk and the regimented discourse of sciences such as, most notably, biology, is shot through with teleology. We describe artifacts and natural devices as being supposed to do such and such, or having the function of behaving in thus and so a manner. This is in apparent tension with the idea that there are no final causes— & Marc Artiga [email protected] 1
Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universita¨t Mu¨nchen, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 Munich, Germany
2
LOGOS – Logic, Language and Cognition Research Group, Universitat Auto´noma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona, Spain
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M. Artiga, M. Martı´nez
not if they are supposed to be essentially different from, and not supervene on, efficient causes. Philosophers have proposed several accounts of function which try to reconcile the former appeals to teleology with the latter scruples about causation. Theoretical efforts in this direction have traditionally taken two alternative approaches. One the one hand, etiological theories1 propose to unpack the teleology in functional talk in terms of explanations of the existence of the functional device. So, for example, a prototype corkscrew is supposed to uncork bottles because it has been designed to uncork bottles: the relevant intentional states of the industrial designer in the process of constructing the prototype are, it is to be supposed, directed to that particular goal, and they explain the existence of the prototype. In the more important case in which there are no designers with intentional states—for example, when dealing with natural devices such as wings or beaks—the most popular elaboration of the etiological insight2 appeals to the causal contribution that past instances
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