Teleology and the product analogy

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 75, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 21-37

  Matthen, Mohan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0001786682     PISSN: 00048402     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00048409712347651     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. This paper grew out of comments on Mark Bedau's 'Can Biological Teleology be Naturalized?' The Journal of Philosophy 88 (1991) pp. 647-655 delivered at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meetings in December 1991. An early version of part of the paper was delivered to the Australasian Association of Philosophy, New Zealand Division in Dunedin and I thank John Collier, Paul Griffiths and Kim Sterelny for their comments on this occasion. Berent Enç. Bruce Hunter and several anonymous referees made helpful suggestions. My greatest debt is to Catherine Wilson who read and criticized successive drafts and with each iteration of the process forced me to greater and greater scepticism concerning the category of teleological explanation
2. In Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundation for Realism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1984) and 'In Defense of Proper Functions', Philosophy of Science 56 (1989) pp. 288-309.1 shall be discussing Millikan's views in section II
3. Paul E. Griffiths, 'Functional Analysis and Proper Functions', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science44 (1993) pp. 409-422
4. I will restrict myself here to function-statements like F; for an anti-reductionist conclusion with respect to goal-attributions like G, see Mohan Matthen and Edwin Levy, 'Teleology, Error, and the Human Immune System', The Journal of Philosophy 81 (1984) pp. 351-384
5. In my view, Millikan's is the best available account of this kind. Some mistakenly identify her account with that of Larry Wright, 'Functions', The Philosophical Review 82 (1973) pp. 139-168
6. His account (deliberately and iconoclastically) leaves out 'because' clauses such as ii) in Millikan's in the spirit of his denial that functions explain. The consequence is that he makes every result of a thing's activities into a function of that thing: for example, it is a Cummins-function of the heart to make diagnostically useful sounds. This is surely a counter-intuitive result. (Not that this is a conclusive objection: Cummins-functions may be the norm in certain scientific contexts, as Ron Amundson and George V. Lauder argue in 'Function without Purpose: The Uses of Causal Role Function in Evolutionary Biology', Biology and Philosophy 9 (1994) pp. 443-469
7. 'Unjustified Variation and Selective Retention in Scientific Discovery' in F. Ayala and T. Dobzhansky (eds.), Studies in the Philosophy of Biology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974)
8. See also James Lennox, 'Darwin Was a Teleologist', Biology and Philosophy 8 (1993) pp. 409-421 and Michael Ghiselin's response, 'Darwin's Language May Seem Teleological, but his Thinking is Another Matter', Biology and Philosophy 9 (1994) pp. 489-492. This pair of articles aptly illustrates the perspective dependence of assessments of Darwin's commitment to teleology
9. The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971) pp. 87-106
10. In an otherwise useful and sensible contribution to the literature on teleology, 'Function and Design', Midwest Studies in Philosophy 18 (1993) pp. 379-397
11. 'Galen Explains the Elephant' in M. Matthen and B. Linsky (eds.), Philosophy and Biology, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supp. Vol. 21 (Calgary: University of Calgar Press, 1988) pp. 135-157
12. See The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History (New York: Norton, 1985) pp. 23-29
13. Op. cit., p. 36, my emphasis. I take the term 'usefulness' from Gould
14. Quoted by Shirley Roe, Matter, Life, and Generation: Eighteenth century embryology and the Haller-Wolff debate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) p. 29. The emphasis is mine
15. The Works of Aristotle Translated into English. ed. and trans., R.P. Hardie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930) vol. II, 199a9-15