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Functions and Goal Directedness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Berent Enç  and
Fred Adams
Berent Enç*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Wisconsin
Fred Adams*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy Central Michigan University
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Abstract

We examine two approaches to functions: etiological and forward-looking. In the context of functions, we raise the question, familiar to philosophers of mind, about the explanatory role of properties that are not supervenient on the mere dispositional features of a system. We first argue that the question has no easy answer in either of the two approaches. We then draw a parallel between functions and goal directedness. We conclude by proposing an answer to the question: The explanatory importance of nonsupervenient properties (like having the function of doing something, or like being goal-directed) does not lie in any special causal mechanism through which these properties bring about their effects; it lies rather in the different classification of the explananda types that these properties generate.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , December 1992 , pp. 635 - 654
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

We have benefitted from the insightful and helpful comments of an anonymous referee. We are also grateful to Elliott Sober, Arda Denkel, Malcolm Forster, and Dennis Stampe for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

‡

Send reprint requests to the authors, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

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