I defend the historical definition of "function" originally given in my Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories (1984a). The definition was not offered in the spirit of conceptual analysis but is more akin to a theoretical definition of "function". A major theme is that nonhistorical analyses of "function" fail to deal adequately with items that are not capable of performing their functions.

Biological functions are dispositions or effects a trait has which explain the recent maintenance of the trait under natural selection. This is the "modern history" approach to functions. The approach is historical because to ascribe a function is to make a claim about the past, but the relevant past is the recent past; modern history rather than ancient.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 49-75 [Access article in PDF] Sensible Ends:Latent Teleology in Descartes' Account of Sensation Alison Simmons One of Descartes' hallmark contributions to natural philosophy is his denunciation of teleology. It is puzzling, then, to find him arguing in Meditation VI that human beings have sensations in order to preserve the union of mind and body (AT VII 83). 1 This appears to (...) be just the sort of teleological explanation that he proscribes. Descartes' Anglo-American commentators have had little to say about the teleological overtones of his claims about sensation. His French commentators acknowledge these overtones, but seem largely untroubled by them. 2 It is worth pausing to be troubled, for a closer analysis reveals that Descartes' famous proscription against teleology is not as simple as it is generally thought to be. In the first half of this essay, I argue that Descartes advocates a genuinely teleological conception of the senses. My aim is not to charge Descartes with employing illicit teleology, but to argue that there is a place for teleology even in his revisionist natural philosophy. Accordingly, in the second half of this essay, I argue that Descartes' assault on teleological explanation is [End Page 49] not a sweeping assault on finality, but a more directed attack on particular uses of ends in natural philosophy. Descartes' assault leaves standing a form of teleological explanation that proves crucial to his own treatment of sensation. 1. Descartes' Rejection of Teleological Explanation at a Glance A teleological explanation is one that purports to account for something in terms of its ends or its function relative to the ends of the system of which it is a part. Aristotle's physics provides many classic examples: plants produce leaves for the protection of their fruit; spiders spin webs in order to catch food; animals grow sharp front teeth and dull back teeth in order to facilitate biting and chewing respectively; eyes are for seeing. According to Aristotle, all natural phenomena are directed toward ends and no explanation is complete without a teleological component that specifies the end for the sake of which the phenomenon occurs. Indeed ends take explanatory priorityover other causes: "Both causes [the end and the matter] must be stated by the student of nature, but especially the end; for that is the cause of the matter, not vice versa." 3 And: [T]he causes concerned in natural generation are, as we see, more than one. There is the cause for the sake of which [the end], and the cause whence the beginning of motion comes [the efficient cause]. Now we must decide which of these two causes comes first, which second. Plainly, however, that cause is the first which we call that for the sake of which. For this is the account of the thing, and the account forms the starting-point.4In other words, Aristotle argues that natural substances have the matter they do, have the parts or organs they do, are organized as they are and act as they do for the sake of their ends. To explain why things are as they are, the natural philosopher must therefore explain the ways in which they contribute to ends.Among the late scholastic Aristotelians familiar to Descartes there is considerable debate concerning the causal efficacy of ends. Genuine final causation, in which something is said to be acted on by an end, is limited to the intentional behavior of rational agents who consciously recognize their ends: only something that recognizes an end can be "moved" by one. Even here the sort of causation involved is peculiar: a rational agent is "moved" by an end insofar as the end induces a "metaphorical motion" toward (or desire for) the end in the agent's will. 5 While these scholastic Aristotelians resist attributing final causation [End Page 50] to non-rational creatures, they nevertheless persist in attributing ends to them. When Toletus, Rubio, the Coimbrans and Suarez take up the question whether nature acts propter finem, each answers it affirmatively: natural... (shrink)

. The concept of bodily health is problematic for mechanists like Descartes, as it seems that they need to appeal to something extrinsic to a machine, i.e., its purpose, to determine whether the machine is working well or badly, and so healthy or unhealthy. I take issue with this claim. By drawing on the history of medicine, I suggest that in the seventeenth century there was space for a non-teleological account of health. I further argue that mechanists can and did (...) appeal to structural integrity, as a non-teleological notion of form, to ground the norms required for ascriptions of health. (shrink)

A commonplace in traditional historiography is the claim that an important aspect of the demise of Aristotelianism during the Scientific Revolution was a change in the concept of causality, a change which eliminated final causes from science. Projecting twentieth-century metaphysical presuppositions onto the ostensibly revolutionary thought of early modern natural philosophers, E. A. Burtt declared.

This chapter contains section titled: Extension and Extended Substance? Bodies and Extended Substances Bodies, Space, and the Ontology of Everyday Life Acknowledgments References and Further Reading.

This chapter contains section titled: Status of Animals Origins of Animals Life, Health, and Function Sense and Cognition Are Descartes's Animals Unfeeling Machines? Descartes's Legacy References and Further Reading.

The etiological approach to ‘proper functions’ in biology can be strengthened by relating it to Robert Cummins' general treatment of function ascription. The proper functions of a biological trait are the functions it is assigned in a Cummins-style functional explanation of the fitness of ancestors. These functions figure in selective explanations of the trait. It is also argued that some recent etiological theories include inaccurate accounts of selective explanation in biology. Finally, a generalization of the notion of selective explanation allows (...) an analysis of the proper functions of human artifacts. (shrink)

Important to Kuhn's account of scientific change is the observation that when paradigms are in competition with one another, there is a curious breakdown of rational argument and communication between adherents of competing programs. He attributed this to the fact that competing paradigms are incommensurable. The incommensurability thesis centrally involves the claim that there is a deep conceptual gap between competing paradigms in science. In this paper I argue that in one important case of competing paradigms, the Aristotelian explanation of (...) the properties of bodies in terms of matter and form as opposed to the Cartesian mechanist paradigm, where the properties of bodies are explained on the model of machines, there was no such conceptual gap: the notion of a machine was as fully intelligible on the Aristotelian paradigm as it was on the Cartesian. But this does not mean that the debate between the two sides was conducted on purely rational terms. Rational argument breaks down not because of Kuhnian incommensurability, I argue, but because of other cultural factors separating the two camps. (shrink)

Although the basis of modern biology is Cartesian, Descartes’s theories of biology have been more often ridiculed than studied. Yet, Dennis Des Chene demonstrates, the themes, arguments, and vocabulary of his mechanistic biology pervade the writings of many seventeenth-century authors. In his illuminating account of Cartesian physiology in its historical context, Des Chene focuses on the philosopher’s innovative reworking of that field, including the nature of life, the problem of generation, and the concepts of health and illness. Des Chene begins (...) by surveying works that Descartes would likely have encountered, from late Aristotelian theories of the soul to medical literature and treatises on machines. The Cartesian theory of vital operations is examined, with particular attention to the generation of animals. Des Chene also considers the role of the machine-model in furnishing a method in physiology, the ambiguities of the notion of machine, and of Descartes’s problem of simulation. Finally, he looks at,the various kinds of unity of the body, both in itself and in its union with the soul. Spirits and Clocks continues Des Chene’s highly regarded exploration -- begun in his previous book, Life’s Form -- of the scholastic and Cartesian sciences as well as the dialogue between these two worldviews. Introduction 1 Part One - Tales of the Bête-Machine [ 1 ] - Self-Movers 13 [ 2 ] - Where Do Machines Come From? 32 [ 3 ] - The Uses of Usus 53 Part Two - Machines, Mechanisms, Bodies, Organs [ 4 ] - Tools of Knowledge 71 [ 5 ] - Jeux D’Artifice 103 [ 6 ] - Unity of the Body 116 Conclusion 153 Bibliography 159 Index 177. (shrink)

Physiologia provides an accessible and comprehensive guide to late Aristotelian natural philosophy; with that context in hand, it offers new interpretations of major themes in Descartes’s natural philosophy.

Finally, he looks at,the various kinds of unity of the body, both in itself and in its union with the soul.Spirits and Clocks continues Des Chene's highly ...

De la notion de vie on pourrait dire ce que saint Augustin disait du temps : "Si personne ne me demande ce que c'est, je le sais; mais si on me le demande et que je veuille l'expliquer, je ne le sais plus." L'ouvrage s'efforce de saisir cette notion à travers les écrits des plus grands théoriciens de la vie, de l'Antiquité à l'aube de la biologie moderne. Il s'agit d'un guide de lecture et d'une gigantesque somme de textes - (...) plus de mille extraits d'ouvrages essentiels - commentés et critiqués dans une perspective historique, philosophique et scientifique. C'est aussi la tentative d'éclaircir, par l'histoire d'une notion, la philosophie sous-tendant les sciences biologiques actuelles. Hippocrate, Platon, Aristote et Galien ouvrent une réflexion systématique sur la vie. Leurs théories subsisteront jusqu'à la Renaissance, où la chimiatrie les conteste, et au XVIIe siècle où le mécanisme les remplace par une conception issue de la nouvelle physique (Von Helmont, Harvey, Descartes, Malebranche). Au siècle des Lumières, médecins et naturalistes (Boerhaave, Stahl, Bonnet, Bichat, entre autres) poursuivent la recherche en des voies diverses et parfois divergentes, mais sans parvenir à des résultats comparables à ceux qu'obtient la physique newtonienne à la même époque. Ce n'est qu'au XIXe siècle et au début du XXe que la biologie moderne trouve ses véritables pères fondateurs (Lamarck, Claude Bernard, Darwin, Mendel, Weismann, De Vries). L'ouvrage est composé d'un texte principal illustré par de nombreuses citations. Texte principal et citations sont différenciés typographiquement. Deux niveaux de lecture sont possibles, soit l'ensemble du texte et des citations, soit le seul texte principal qui forme un tout en lui-même. (shrink)

The Oxford Translation of Aristotle was originally published in 12 volumes between 1912 and 1954. It is universally recognized as the standard English version of Aristotle. This revised edition contains the substance of the original Translation, slightly emended in light of recent scholarship three of the original versions have been replaced by new translations and a new and enlarged selection of Fragments has been added. The aim of the translation remains the same: to make the surviving works of Aristotle readily (...) accessible to English speaking readers. (shrink)

But what are functions? Here, 15 leading scholars of philosophy of psychology and philosophy of biology present new essays on functions.

The most comprehensive collection of essays on Descartes' scientific writings ever published, this volume offers a detailed reassessment of Descartes' scientific work and its bearing on his philosophy. The 35 essays, written by some of the world's leading scholars, cover topics as diverse as optics, cosmology and medicine, and will be of vital interest to all historians of philosophy or science.

This chapter considers philosophical problems concerning non-human (and sometimes human) animals, including their metaphysical, physical, and moral status, their origin, what makes them alive, their functional organization, and the basis of their sensitive and cognitive capacities. I proceed by assuming what most of Descartes’s followers and interpreters have held: that Descartes proposed that animals lack sentience, feeling, and genuinely cognitive representations of things. (Some scholars interpret Descartes differently, denying that he excluded sentience, feeling, and representation from animals, and I consider (...) the evidence for these interpretations as well.) Given that Descartes denied any sort of soul to animals, his other philosophical commitments entailed that he must explain the vital and sensitive powers of non-human animals through purely material causes. Indeed, he welcomed this task, for he was engaged in the larger project of providing purely mechanistic explanations for all natural phenomena of the material world. Animal bodies form functional unities that are adapted to environmental circumstances. In his new physics, Descartes sought to discover or hypothesize material mechanisms that would explain the physiological and behavioral capacities of animals, including how they maintain themselves by seeking food and drink, reproduce themselves, and modify their behavior to fit current circumstances. Metaphysically, his new perspective raised the problem of accounting for the functional unity of the animal body considered as a purely material construction, devoid of an active, organizing power such as the sensitive soul. Descartes’s project becomes even more challenging if we ask whence come such mechanisms that are capable of performing the functions of living things. Officially, Descartes endorsed the accepted theological orthodoxy, that God designed and created the bodily mechanisms of humans and animals. However, in his natural philosophy he set himself the task of explaining the origin of animals as part of the natural development of the universe out of an original chaotic soup of material particles. Within this naturalistic perspective, he must explain how, through purely material processes, the functionally organized bodies of living things (plants and animals) could be produced from non-living matter. Without a designing creator, how do animal bodies arise that are capable of digesting food, growing, reproducing, and performing the behaviors needed to preserve life and health? (shrink)

Neo-teleology is the two part thesis that, e.g., (i) we have hearts because of what hearts are for: Hearts are for blood circulation, not the production of a pulse, so hearts are there--animals have them--because their function is to circulate the blood, and (ii) that (i) is explained by natural selection: traits spread through populations because of their functions. This paper attacks this popular doctrine. The presence of a biological trait or structure is not explained by appeal to its function. (...) To suppose otherwise is to trivialize natural selection. (shrink)

This dissertation is an examination of the emergence of the preformation doctrine of generation in three early modern philosophers: Descartes, Malebranche and Leibniz. Received wisdom on this question maintains that the preformation doctrine became so popular in the seventeenth century because it seemed most capable of explaining generation of living beings within the limits of the reigning mechanical philosophy. This dissertation considers another motivation, generally neglected by commentators, for the rise of this doctrine in the early modern period---namely to account (...) for the individuation, unity and enduring identity of material bodies. ;With the clear exception of Leibniz, early modern rationalists rarely developed robust theories of material individuation, but I argue that the living, organic being is a paradigm example of the enduring material unity for all three philosophers under examination. Descartes' theory of generation, however, is unable to account for the unity of this living being, although it is able to account for species-specific complexity even given the nascent mechanism that he embraced. So Malebranche introduces preformation as a way to remedy this failure. ;Nonetheless, both Descartes' and Malebranche's forms of mechanism threaten the material unity of organisms on a number of fronts. Leibniz's starting point, I argue, is the problem of individuation very broadly conceived, and his solutions to the various aspects of this problem all dovetail to culminate in his quite unique theory of preformation and in a notably different version of mechanism than that held by his predecessors. ;All three thinkers draw on Aristotelian ideas about substantial unity and organic beings, though they do so in different ways. I thus show that the usual story of the early moderns' radical break from Aristotelianism crumbles under a consideration of the individuation of living individuals. I also argue that teleology enters into all three philosophers' work more than normally supposed. Finally, I use my findings to suggest new ways of looking at central metaphysical questions of the seventeenth century and new ways of reading the historiography of generation in the early modern period. (shrink)