Function as Design versus Function as Usefulness.

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        <b>Function as Design versus Function as Usefulness.</b>
      
      
        
      
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        Wayne D. Christensen, Mark H. Bickhard
      
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        <u>PDF <http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/funcdesignfuncuseful.pdf></u>
      
      
        
      
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        This paper argues for a radically different approach to normative function than the 
        dominant etiological account, an approach with a broader explanatory agenda. Concepts of 
        biological function address two related but distinct issues: understanding biological 
        organisms as complex organized systems, and understanding the way in which parts have come 
        to be present in organisms because of their adaptive value. The etiological account 
        focuses primarily on the latter, treating the complex organization of organisms as a 
        derivative issue solved in passing, as it were, by explanations for the presence of parts 
        within organisms. This way of treating the issues is unsatisfactory, however, since the 
        etiological model of normative function fails to provide the conceptual resources required 
        for understanding the complex process interrelationships characteristic of organisms as 
        organizationally integrated systems. It makes normative functions epiphenomenal, it 
        provides a limited account of dysfunction, and it is unable to adequately characterize 
        multifunctional parts or the organization of densely connected functional complexes. In 
        other words, although explanations for the presence of traits and explanations for the way 
        organisms function as complex integrated systems certainly overlap, they are not 
        conceptually or causally identical issues, and nor can one issue be treated purely as 
        derivative upon the other. Our approach recognizes this and develops an account of 
        normative function that directly focuses on whole-system organization and process 
        interdependence. 
      
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Function as Design versus Function as Usefulness.

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