Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-9nwgx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-23T11:11:45.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Natural Selection and the Unity of Functional Analyses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Adela Helena Roszkowski
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

While the question of whether selected-effects accounts of function or causal-role accounts of function provide the ‘true’ functional analysis has given way to a general pluralistic consensus, Philip Kitcher has suggested that different functional accounts allow for unification. I argue that Kitcher's attempt to unify the two functional analyses fails because he adopts the environment-centered perspective on selection as a premise. The premise is undermined by the role niche construction is likely to play in the context of evolution. Moreover, I raise the tentative suggestion that niche construction may threaten the applicability, or at least the relevance, of selected-effects ascriptions.

Type
Student Essays
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 633 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article is the winner of the 2008 PSA Graduate Student Essay Award.

References

Amundson, Ron, and Lauder, George V.. 1998. “Function without Purpose: The Uses of Causal Role Function in Evolutionary Biology.” In The Philosophy of Biology, ed. Hull, David L. and Ruse, Michael, 227–57. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Buller, David J. 1998. “Etiological Theories of Function: A Geographical Survey.” Biology and Philosophy 13 (4): 505–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Robert. 1975. “Functional Analysis.” Journal of Philosophy 72 (20): 741–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, Rachel L., Laland, Kevin N., and Odling-Smee, John. 2003. “Rethinking Adaptation: The Niche Construction Perspective.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 46 (1): 80–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 1998. “Functions: Consensus without Unity.” In The Philosophy of Biology, ed. Hull, David L. and Ruse, Michael, 280–91. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay, and Lewontin, Richard C.. 1979. “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 205 (1161): 581–98.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Paul. 1993. “Functional Analysis and Proper Functions.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (3): 409–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1998. “Function and Design.” In The Philosophy of Biology, ed. Hull, David L. and Ruse, Michael, 258–79. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth. 1989. “In Defense of Proper Functions.” Philosophy of Science 56 (2): 288–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Odling-Smee, F. J., Laland, Kevin N., and Feldman, Marcus W.. 2003. Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Peter H. 1998. “Proper Function and Recent Selection.” Philosophy of Science 66 (Proceedings): 210–22.Google Scholar
Sterelny, Kim, and Griffiths, Paul E.. 1999. Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Larry. 1973. “Functions.” Philosophical Review 82 (2): 139–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar