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  1. Home
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  3. What Functions Explain
  • Cited by 92
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
August 2009
Print publication year:
2000
Online ISBN:
9780511498510
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498510
Subjects:
Philosophy of Science, Philosophy
Series:
Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology
Information

Book description

This 2001 book offers an examination of functional explanation as it is used in biology and the social sciences, and focuses on the kinds of philosophical presuppositions that such explanations carry with them. It tackles such questions as: why are some things explained functionally while others are not? What do the functional explanations tell us about how these objects are conceptualized? What do we commit ourselves to when we give and take functional explanations in the life sciences and the social sciences? McLaughlin gives a critical review of the debate on functional explanation in the philosophy of science. He discusses the history of the philosophical question of teleology, and provides a comprehensive review of the post-war literature on functional explanation. What Functions Explain provides a sophisticated and detailed Aristotelian analysis of our concept of natural functions, and offers a positive contribution to the ongoing debate on the topic.

Reviews

'McLaughlin has given us an original and daring account of functional explanation … [his] fascinating account of organisms as self-maintaining systems is important …'

Source: Acta Biotheoretica

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