What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter

✍ Scribed by Justin Garson

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 250
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The biological functions debate is a perennial topic in the philosophy of science. In the first full-length account of the nature and importance of biological functions for many years, Justin Garson presents an innovative new theory, the 'generalized selected effects theory of function', which seamlessly integrates evolutionary and developmental perspectives on biological functions. He develops the implications of the theory for contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of medicine and psychiatry, the philosophy of biology, and biology itself, addressing issues ranging from the nature of mental representation to our understanding of the function of the human genome. Clear, jargon-free, and engagingly written, with accessible examples and explanatory diagrams to illustrate the discussion, his book will be highly valuable for readers across philosophical and scientific disciplines.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half-title
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I Background
Chapter 1 The Strangeness of Functions
1.1 Functions and Explanations
1.2 Backwards Causation
1.3 Theism and Fictionalism
1.4 Being There
1.5 Rules of the Game
Chapter 2 Function and Selection
2.1 The Traditional Selected Effects Theory
2.2 Mutation, Drift, Design
2.3 Criticisms of the Traditional Selected Effects Theory
The Selected Effects Theory is Not Really Explanatory
The Selected Effects Theory is Not Really Normative
Functions and Vestiges
A Bevy of Counterexamples
Chapter 3 Feedback and Functions
3.1 Forward-Looking Functions
3.2 Invoking the Wrong History
3.3 Organizational Functions
3.4 Weak Etiological Functions
Part II Theory
Chapter 4 An Explosion of Selection Processes
4.1 The Breadth of Selection
4.2 Functions and Antibody Selection
4.3 Is Learning a Selection Process?
Chapter 5 Selection and Construction
5.1 How to Build a Brain
5.2 Selection and Construction
5.3 War of the Synapses
5.4 The Function of Selection
5.5 How the Brain Makes Functions
Chapter 6 A Generalized Selected Effects Theory of Function
6.1 The Theory
6.2 Six Problems for GSE
6.3 Functions and Populations
6.4 A Harder Liberality Problem
Chapter 7 Proper Functions Are Proximal Functions
7.1 What Function Indeterminacy Is and Why It Matters
7.2 Distal and Proximal Functions
7.3 An Objection to Proximal Functions
7.4 Functions and Functional Analysis
7.5 Functions and Mechanistic Explanation
Chapter 8 When Functions Go Wrong
8.1 Constitution and Circumstance
8.2 Normal Environment and Selective Environment
8.3 Can the Biostatistical Theory Explain Dysfunction?
Part III Applications
Chapter 9 Function Pluralism
9.1 Selected Effects and Causal Roles
9.2 SE-Disciplines and CR-Disciplines?
Chapter 10 What Are Mechanisms?
10.1 The Functional Sense of Mechanism
10.2 Two Senses of ''Mechanism''
10.3 Convergence and Divergence
10.4 How Mechanisms Break
10.5 How to Explain Disease
10.6 Is Natural Selection a Mechanism?
Chapter 11 What Are Mental Disorders?
11.1 Mental Disorders and Biological Dysfunctions
11.2 Mismatch or Dysfunction?
11.3 Developmental Mismatches
11.4 Generalized Selection Processes and Mental Disorders
11.5 Objections and Replies
No Dysfunction, No Disorder
A Disorder and a Dysfunction
Chapter 12 A New Kind of Teleosemantics
12.1 Meaning and Selection
12.2 Producers and Consumers
12.3 Neural Selection and Novel Representations
12.4 Proximal-Distal Content Indeterminacy
A Programmatic Epilogue
References
Index