Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:12:53.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

No Strings Attached: Functional and Intentional Action Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Mark Risjord
Mark Risjord*
Affiliation:
Emory University
*
†Philosophy Department, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Functional explanation in the social sciences is the focal point for conflict between individualistic and social modes of explanation. While the agent thought she was acting for reasons, the functional explanation seems to reveal the hidden strings of the puppet master. This essay argues that the conflict is merely apparent. The erotetic model of explanation is used to analyze the forms of intentional action and functional explanations. Two explanations conflict if either the presuppositions of their respective why-questions conflict or the typical answers identified by their relevance criteria conflict. While a functional explanation may have the same topic and foil as an intentional action explanation, both the why-questions and their typical answers are compatible.

Type
Philosophy of Social Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1999 , 1999 , pp. S299 - S313
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by 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 essay benefited from critical commentary by James Bohman, Paul Davies, and Elizabeth Preston.

References

Bromberger, Sylvain (1966), “Why Questions”, in Colodny, Robert G. (ed.), Mind and Cosmos: Essays in Contemporary Science and Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 86–111.Google Scholar
Cummins, Robert (1975), “Functional Explanation”, Journal of Philosophy 72: 741–764.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Robert. (1983), The Nature of Psychological Explanation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Alan (1981), Forms of Explanation. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Steven J. and Lewontin, Richard C. (1979), “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Program”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 205: 281–288.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl (1965), Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Lipton, Peter (1991), Inference to the Best Explanation. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macdonald, Graham and Pettit, Philip (1981), Semantics and Social Science. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K. (1957), Social Theory and Social Structure, rev. ed. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth G. (1984), Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Neander, Karen (1991), “Functions as Selected Effects: The Conceptual Analyst's Defense”, Philosophy of Science 58: 168–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, Elizabeth (1998), “Why is a Wing Like a Spoon?: A Pluralist Theory of Function”, Journal of Philosophy 95(5): 215–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risjord, Mark (forthcoming), Woodcutters and Witchcraft: Rationality and Interpretive Change in the Social Sciences. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, Michael. (1971), “Function Statements in Biology”, Philosophy of Science 38: 87–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruse, Michael. (1973), Philosophy of Biology. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Ruse, Michael. (1981), “Teleology Redux”, in Agassi, J. and Cohen, R. S. (eds.), Scientific Philosophy Today. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 299–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott (1986), “Explanatory Presupposition”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64(2): 143–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0198244274.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Larry (1972), “Explanation and Teleology”, Philosophy of Science 39: 204–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Larry. (1976), Teleological Explanations. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar