4:00pm
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5:30pm |
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Philosophy Colloquium
(Seminar/Conference)
Marcel Weber (Professor in the Science Studies Program & Department of Philosophy, University of Basel) will present his paper: "A New Look at Biological Functions" followed by discussion and Q & A.
ABSTRACT: It is widely agreed that the concept of function plays a distinct and crucially important role in the biological sciences (and to a lesser degree in the social sciences). However, the problem of how precisely functional claims should be understood turned out to be surprisingly recalcitrant. After suggesting that these difficulties come from unsolved philosophical riddles about teleological judgment, I critically examine some current thinking on how biological functions could be naturalized. One view is known as the "etiological" approach. I examine two kinds of etiological theory, the well-known theory of "proper functions" being one of them. The other is the notion of self-reproductive functions. I argue that both succumb basically to the same difficulty. The second family of theories attempts to reduce functions to causal roles, sometimes with the help of a mechanistic theory of causation. Unless it is accepted that functions are fully interest-relative, this account must face the functional regress. I present reasons why something like an ultimate systems capacity (e.g., fitness) is unable to stop this regress. On my account, functions are defined by their place in a system of causal roles that best explains how an organism can self-reproduce (i.e., persist as an individual). Finally, I take on John Searle's challenge that biological functions are value-laden. My response to this challenge comes in two steps: First, I show that Searle's thesis presupposes that functions are normative in a strong sense (i.e., like reasons). But they are at best weakly normative. Second, I argue that what is salient in assigning functions is not the fact that we value survival (as Searle contends) but the fact that the survival of individual organisms is what scientists want to explain. This kind of explanandum-relativity is also known in the philosophy of causation. Nonetheless, there is a role for pragmatic factors in the specification of the identity conditions for self-reproducing systems.
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231-5977