Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:36:36.715Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are There Teleological Functions to Compute?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Dimitri Coelho Mollo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I analyze a tension at the core of the mechanistic view of computation generated by its joint commitment to the medium independence of computational vehicles and to computational systems possessing teleological functions to compute. While computation is individuated in medium-independent terms, teleology is sensitive to the constitutive physical properties of vehicles. This tension spells trouble for the mechanistic view, suggesting that there can be no teleological functions to compute. I argue that, once considerations about the relevant function-bestowing factors for computational systems are brought to bear, the tension dissolves: physical systems can have the teleological function to compute.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 431 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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.)

Footnotes

*

To contact the author, please write to: Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany; e-mail: dimitri.coelhomollo@hu-berlin.de.

†

I am indebted to Nicholas Shea, Michael Pauen, Margherita Arcangeli, the participants of the Philosophy of Mind colloquium at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, and two referees to this journal for helpful comments on previous versions of this material.

References

Aizawa, Kenneth, and Gillett, Carl. 2009. “The (Multiple) Realization of Psychological and Other Properties in the Sciences.” Mind and Language 24 (2): 181–208..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andersen, Holly. 2014. “A Field Guide to Mechanisms.” Pts. 1 and 2. Philosophy Compass 9 (4): 274–83., 284–93.Google Scholar
Anderson, Michael L. 2015. “Beyond Compositional Constitution in the Brain: Starburst Amacrine Cells and Enabling Constraints.” In Open MIND, ed. Metzinger, Thomas and Windt, Jennifer M.. Frankfurt: MIND Group.Google Scholar
Artiga, Marc. 2016. “New Perspectives on Artifactual and Biological Functions.” Applied Ontology 11:89–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boorse, Christopher. 1976. “Wright on Functions.” Philosophical Review 85 (1): 70–86..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David J. 1996. “Does a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton?” Synthese 108:309–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David J.. 2011. “A Computational Foundation for the Study of Cognition.” Journal of Cognitive Science 12 (4): 323–57..Google Scholar
Coelho Mollo, Dimitri. 2018. “Functional Individuation, Mechanistic Implementation: The Proper Way of Seeing the Mechanistic View of Concrete Computation.” Synthese 195:3477–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F. 2001. “Role Functions, Mechanisms, and Hierarchy.” Philosophy of Science 68:53–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F., and Darden, Lindley. 2013. In Search of Mechanisms: Discoveries across the Life Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, Carl F., and Kaplan, David M.. 2018. “Are More Details Better? On the Norms of Completeness for Mechanistic Explanations.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, forthcoming. doi:10.1093/bjps/axy015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Robert C. 1975. “Functional Analysis.” Journal of Philosophy 72 (20): 741–65..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewhurst, Joe. 2014. “Mechanistic Miscomputation: A Reply to Fresco and Primiero.” Philosophy and Technology 27:495–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewhurst, Joe. 2018a. “Computing Mechanisms without Proper Functions.” Minds and Machines 28 (3): 569–88..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewhurst, Joe. 2018b. “Individuation without Representation.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (1): 103–16..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fresco, Nir. 2014. Physical Computation and Cognitive Science. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fresco, Nir, and Primiero, Giuseppe. 2013. “Miscomputation.” Philosophy and Technology 26 (3): 253–72..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garson, Justin. 2011. “Selected Effects and Causal Role Functions in the Brain: The Case for an Etiological Approach to Neuroscience.” Biology and Philosophy 26 (4): 547–65..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garson, Justin. 2013. “The Functional Sense of Mechanism.” Philosophy of Science 80:317–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 1993. “Functions: Consensus without Unity.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 74 (3): 196–208..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 1994. “A Modern History Theory of Functions.” Noûs 28 (3): 344–62..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haimovici, Sabrina. 2013. “A Problem for the Mechanistic Account of Computation.” Journal of Cognitive Science 14:151–81.Google Scholar
Haugeland, John. 1985. Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Huneman, Philippe, ed. 2013. Functions: Selection and Mechanisms. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Illari, Phyllis McKay, and Williamson, Jon. 2012. “What Is a Mechanism? Thinking about Mechanisms across the Sciences.” European Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2:119–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maley, Corey J., and Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2017. “A Unified Mechanistic Account of Teleological Functions for Psychology and Neuroscience.” In Explanation and Integration in Mind and Brain Science, ed. Kaplan, David M., 236–54. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Milkowski, Marcin. 2013. Explaining the Computational Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, Ruth Garrett. 1984. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Neander, Karen. 1991. “Functions as Selected Effects: The Conceptual Analyst’s Defence.” Philosophy of Science 58 (2): 168–84..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papineau, David. 1993. Philosophical Naturalism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Papineau, David. 1994. “Mental Disorder, Illness, and Biological Disfunction.” Philosophy 37:73–82.Google Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero. 2015. Physical Computation: A Mechanistic Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piccinini, Gualtiero, and Maley, Corey J.. 2014. “The Metaphysics of Mind and the Multiple Sources of Multiple Realizability.” In New Waves in Philosophy of Mind, ed. Sprevak, Mark and Kallestrup, Jesper, 125–52. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 1988. Representation and Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Schweizer, Paul. 2016. “In What Sense Does the Brain Compute?” In Computing and Philosophy, ed. Müller, Vincent C., 63–79. Synthese Library 375. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, John R. 1992. The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Lawrence A. 2000. “Multiple Realizations.” Journal of Philosophy 97 (12): 635–54..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Larry. 1973. “Functions.” Philosophical Review 82 (2): 139–68..CrossRefGoogle Scholar