Biofunctions: Two Paradigms

Ruth Garrett Millikan

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Philosophy and History of Science Philosophy and Theoretical Science Philosophy, Science, and History

Abstract

Abstract Applications to biological systems of Robert Cummins’s notion of ‘function’ from his classic paper ‘Functional Analysis’ (Cummins 1975) and of my notion ‘proper function’ from Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories (LTOBC) (Millikan 1984) are discussed and compared. Neither notion is fully determinate in its application to life forms, always cutting decisively between ‘functions’ of the designated kind and ‘mere effects’. Nor do we need a notion of function in biology that is fully deter-minate in this way. The dimensions of indeterminacy for both concepts are explored.

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