Function by Agreement

Abstract

Philosophers of biology have developed an extensive literature on biological functions. Here I propose a treatment of the topic based in social studies of science. I posit that the chief philosophical accounts of biological functions all rest upon a realist ontology of biological functions, one that conceives functions as human-independent qualities of things. Rather than being conceptualised as a property of traits or structures, function should be understood as a status granted by communities acting in accordance with specific domains of knowledge and practice. Function becomes not a property of things, but a collective good: not of things, but by communities. I survey the existing explanations of biological functions from the philosophical literature and identify what I take to be those accounts’ shared complications. I then employ Martin Kusch’s communitarian epistemology as a point of departure for a sociological conception of function and develop an explanation of function that rests on an understanding of it, as a status granted by epistemic communities. I follow by illustrating the usefulness of my account by means of a case study from synthetic biology—a nascent field of bioengineering. Finally, I discuss function as a conferred status deeply involved in collective ordering practices.

Keywords:

• Function
• Synthetic Biology
• Philosophy of Biology
• Kusch

Notes

[1] A search for studies on biological function revealed only a few exceptions. Among these are Calvert’s study of gene patenting (2007) and Elton’s argument on persons, animals, and machines (1998).

[2] In brief terms, I employ the term “real” to indicate a quality of ontological independence from human social practice.

[3] See Schyfter (2012) for an ontological argument concerning synthetic biology.

[4] Cummins admits “no functions sans phrase” (MacLaughlin 2000, 55).

[5] See for example, Searle (1995), Preston (1998), MacLaughlin (2000), Lewens (2004).

[6] See for example, Longy (2009), Perlman (2009), Preston (2009).

[7] Here, I mean both “in the absence of communities” and “outside of communities”.

[8] This argument is based in no small part on Hume’s discussion of causality and necessary connection in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section 7 ([1748] 1999).

[9] Neander recognises this difficulty (1999).

[10] Ratfliffe’s argument is fundamentally Kantian: teleology is a “regulative” rather than a “constitutive”. Teleology is heuristic. This position is sometimes discussed as “eliminativist”, because some authors argue that “function-talk” may be excised from the biological sciences. Ruse takes function to be heuristic, but argues that its usefulness should keep it from being removed (2002).

[11] My focus in this article is on issues of biological function. I have discussed technological function elsewhere. See Schyfter (2009), (2012). The latter concerns synthetic biology specifically.

[12] 3,4-cyclohexenoesculetin-β-D-galactopyranoside (also known as S-gal).

[13] Specifically, light “turns off” the production of the precipitate. As such, dark portions of a projected image will drive the production of a dark region on the colony of bacteria.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pablo Schyfter

Correspondence to: Pablo Schyfter is a lecturer in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Old Surgeons’ Hall, High School Yards, Edinburgh, EH1 1LZ, UK. His research interests include the sociology of knowledge, the philosophies of biology and technology, and the ongoing development of synthetic biology.