Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T23:52:13.941Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hegel's Organizational Account of Biological Functions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2020

Edgar Maraguat*
Affiliation:
University of Valencia, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Two concepts have polarized the philosophical debates on functions since the 1970s. One is Millikan's concept of ‘proper function’, meant to capture the aetiology of biological organs and artefacts. The other is Cummins's concept of ‘dispositional function’, designed to account for the real work that functional devices perform within a system. In this paper I locate Hegel's concept of biological function in the context of those debates. Admittedly, Hegel's concept is ‘etiological’, since in his account the existence of purposive organs is explained by appeal to their purpose, yet, against Millikan's concept, Hegel's does not presuppose the phenomenon of natural selection nor derives the function of tokens from the function of types. So, my aim is, first, to present Hegel's approach to biological functions as one neither purely etiological nor purely dispositional. It will appear rather as an example of an organizational account (as those advocated today by McLaughlin, Mossio and others), that attributes function according to present performances (unlike etiological accounts) and emphasizes the role of functional parts in their self-production within the system they belong to (unlike dispositional accounts). Finally, I briefly discuss how Hegel's concept performs against common objections to organizational accounts.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain, 2020

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.)

References

Artiga, M. (2011), ‘Re-Organizing Organizational Accounts of Function’, Applied Ontology 6:2: 105–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Artiga, M. and Martínez, M. (2016), ‘The Organizational Account of Function is an Etiological Account of Function’, Acta Biotheoretica 64:2: 105–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cummins, R. (2002), ‘Neo-Teleology’, in Ariew, A., Cummins, R. and Perlman, M. (eds.), Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cummins, R. and Roth, M. (2009), ‘Traits Have Not Evolved to Function the Way They Do Because of a Past Advantage’, in Ayala, F. and Arp, R. (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology. London: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Delancey, C. S. (2006), ‘Ontology and Teleofunctions: A Defence and Revision of the Systematic Account of Teleological Explanation’, Synthese 150: 8998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gambarotto, A. (2018), Vital Forces, Teleology and Organization: Philosophy of Nature and the Rise of Biology in Germany. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (1993), ‘Functions: Consensus Without Unity’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 74: 196208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hösle, V. (1987), Hegels System: Der Idealismus der Subjektivität und das Problem der Intersubjektivität. Hamburg: Meiner.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1987), Critique of Judgement, trans. Pluhar, W. S.. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Kreines, J. (2015), Reason in the World: Hegel's Metaphysics and its Philosophical Appeal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLaughlin, P. (2001), What Functions Explain: Functional Explanation and Self-Reproducing Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Michelini, F. (2008), ‘Thinking Life: Hegel's Conceptualization of Living Being as an Autopoietic Theory of Organized Systems’, in Illetterati, L. and Michelini, F. (eds.), Purposiveness: Teleology between Nature and Mind. Frankfurt: Ontos.Google Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (1989a), ‘In Defence of Proper Functions’, Philosophy of Science 56:2: 288302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (1989b), ‘An Ambiguity in the Notion ‘Function’, Biology and Philosophy 4: 172–76.Google Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (2002), ‘Biofunctions: Two Paradigms’, in Ariew, A., Cummins, R. and Perlman, M. (eds.), Functions: New Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mossio, M., Saborido, C. and Moreno, A. (2009), ‘An Organizational Account of Biological Functions’, British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 60:4: 814–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neander, K. (1991), ‘The Teleological Notion of ‘Function’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69:4: 454–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saborido, C., Mossio, M. and Moreno, A. (2011), ‘Biological Organization and Cross-Generation Functions’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62: 583606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spahn, C. (2007), Lebendiger Begriff—Begriffenes Leben: Zur Grundlegung der Philosophie des Organischen bei G. Hegel, W. F.. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.Google Scholar
Toepfer, G. (2004), Zweckbegriff und Organismus: Über die teleologische Beurteilung biologischer Systeme. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.Google Scholar
Wolff, M. (1992), Das Körper-Seele-Problem. Kommentar zu Hegel, Enzyklopädie (1830), §389. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann.Google Scholar
Wouters, A. (2005), ‘The Function Debate in Philosophy’, Acta Biotheoretica 53: 123–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wouters, A. (2006), ‘Review of: Peter McLaughlin, What Functions Explain’, Acta Biotheoretica 54: 5559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, L. (1973), ‘Functions’, Philosophical Review 82: 139–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar