Proliferative etiological functions in biological systems
Date
2015
Authors
Davis, John, author
Kasser, Jeff, advisor
McShane, Katie, committee member
Callahan, Gerald, committee member
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Abstract
This work will examine functional conceptions in biology, and argue that problems arise when etiological accounts of function are applied to traits contained within a biological system. In the first chapter, prominent analyses of functional language will be examined, with a special interest paid to etiological analyses of biological functions. The second chapter will pose a problem for these etiological analyses that arises out of an aspect of functional traits in biological contexts: functional traits are often nested within containing systems, and etiological analyses of function seem to ascribe the functions of the parts of systems to those systems themselves. There is thus a proliferation of functions at a systemic level as the functions of the components contained within a system are ascribed to the systems that contain them. Furthermore, this proliferation seems to ascribe contradictory functions to systems, and makes more confusing the distinction between the “functions in” a system and the “functions of” a system. The final chapter will examine three possible solutions to this problem: one solution will attempt to prevent the ascription of functions to systems by carefully interpreting what it means to “cause” a system, one will attempt to ground functions in actual influences entities have on their own replication and proliferation, and the final one will reframe the etiological analyses of functions as a specific sort of explanatory project in line with dispositional analyses.
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Subject
etiological functions
biological systems
function