•  2
    Lack, Perversion, Shame
    Philosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 30 (4): 327-332. 2023.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Lack, Perversion, ShameJustin Garson, PhD (bio)I am extremely grateful to the commentators for giving me so much food for thought. Space considerations prevent me from engaging with all of the interesting points they raise, or responding at the length they warrant. For that reason, I chose to structure my response in terms of three recurring themes or distinctions: lack/perversion, madness/mental illness, and shame/pride. Hopefully, …Read more
  •  12
    Madness and Idiocy: Reframing a Basic Problem of Philosophy of Psychiatry
    Philosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 30 (4): 285-295. 2023.
    A basic question of philosophy of psychiatry is “what is madness (mental illness, mental disorder…)?” Contemporary thinkers err by framing the problem as one of defining madness in contrast with sanity. For the Late Modern theorist of madness, the problem was not one of defining madness in contrast with sanity, but in contrast with “idiocy”—the apparent diminution or abolition of one’s reasoning power. This altered reading of the problem has an important consequence. For what distinguishes madne…Read more
  •  25
    Brain Disorders, Dysfunctions, and Natural Selection: Commentary on Jefferson
    Philosophical Psychology 37 (3): 558-569. 2024.
    I argue that despite the merits of Jefferson’s account of a brain disorder, which are many, the notion of function she deploys is unsuitable to the overall goals of that account. In particular, Jefferson accepts Cummins’ causal role theory of function and dysfunction. As the causal role view, in its standard elaborations, is wedded to human interests, goals, and values, it cannot serve as a value-neutral anchor for her hybrid “harm-dysfunction” account of disorder. I argue that the selected effe…Read more
  •  704
    Sex by design: a new account of the animal sexes
    Biology and Philosophy 38 (2): 1-17. 2023.
    What is it for an animal to be female, or male? An emerging consensus among philosophers of biology is that sex is grounded in some manner or another on anisogamy, that is, the ability to produce either large gametes (egg) or small gametes (sperm), though the exact nature of this grounding remains contentious. Here we argue for a new conception of this relation. In our view, one’s sex doesn’t depend on the kind of gamete one is capable of making, but on the kind of gamete one is designed to make…Read more
  •  15
    Response to Neander's Critics
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (2): 490-503. 2022.
  •  12
    Précis of Karen Neander's A Mark of the Mental
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (2): 461-467. 2022.
  •  28
    Madness: A Philosophical Exploration
    Oxford University Press. 2022.
    Since the time of Hippocrates, madness has typically been viewed through the lens of disease, dysfunction, and defect. In 'Madness', philosopher of science Justin Garson presents a radically different paradigm for conceiving of madness and the forms that it takes. In this paradigm, which he calls madness-as-strategy, madness is neither a disease nor a defect, but a designed feature, like the heart or lungs.
  •  219
    Do transposable elements have functions of their very own?
    Biology and Philosophy 37 (3): 1-18. 2022.
    Philosophers who study the problem of biological function often begin their deliberations by reflecting on the functions of parts of animals, or the behavior of animals. Applying theories of biological function to unconventional or borderline cases can help us to better evaluate and refine those theories. This is the case when we consider whether parts of transposable elements —bits of “selfish” DNA that move about within a host genome—have functions of their own, that is, whether the parts of T…Read more
  •  794
    Ageing and the goal of evolution
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43 (1): 1-16. 2021.
    There is a certain metaphor that has enjoyed tremendous longevity in the evolution of ageing literature. According to this metaphor, nature has a certain goal or purpose, the perpetuation of the species, or, alternatively, the reproductive success of the individual. In relation to this goal, the individual organism has a function, job, or task, namely, to breed and, in some species, to raise its brood to maturity. On this picture, those who cannot, or can no longer, reproduce are somehow invisib…Read more
  •  317
    At the beginning of the twentieth century, the French philosopher of science Edmond Goblot wrote three prescient papers on function and teleology. He advanced the remarkable thesis that functions are, as a matter of conceptual analysis, selected effects. He also argued that “selection” must be understood broadly to include both evolutionary natural selection and intelligent design. Here, I do three things. First, I give an overview of Goblot’s thought. Second, I identify his core thesis about fu…Read more
  •  448
    Putting History Back into Mechanisms
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (4): 921-940. 2023.
    Mechanisms, in the prominent biological sense of the term, are historical entities. That is, whether or not something is a mechanism for something depends on its history. Put differently, while your spontaneously-generated molecule-for-molecule double has a heart, and its heart pumps blood around its body, its heart does not have a mechanism for pumping, since it does not have the right history. My argument for this claim is that mechanisms have proper functions; proper functions are historical …Read more
  •  58
    How development may direct evolution
    Biology and Philosophy 18 (2): 353-370. 2003.
    A framework is presented in which the role ofdevelopmental rules in phenotypic evolution canbe studied for some simple situations. Usingtwo different implicit models of development,characterized by different developmental mapsfrom genotypes to phenotypes, it is shown bysimulation that developmental rules and driftcan result in directional phenotypic evolutionwithout selection. For both models thesimulations show that the critical parameterthat drives the final phenotypic distributionis the cardi…Read more
  •  249
    The origin of the coding metaphor in neuroscience
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42. 2019.
    To assess Brette's proposal to expunge “coding” from the neuroscientist's lexicon, we must consider its origins. The coding metaphor is due largely to British nerve physiologist Edgar Adrian. I suggest two ways that the coding metaphor fueled his research. I conclude that the debate today should not be about the “truth” of the metaphor but about its continuing utility.
  •  22
    Review of Efficient cognition: the evolution of representational decision making (review)
    Biology and Philosophy 34 (3): 38. 2019.
    Why do some organisms rely on mental representations for making decisions? Why don’t we rely merely on direct mappings from perception to behavior? Armin W. Schulz’ book, Efficient Cognition: The Evolution of Representational Decision Making, offers a novel and empirically-informed perspective on a problem that has not received the amount of philosophical attention it deserves. In his view, representational decision making evolved because creatures that use it have enhanced cognitive and neurolo…Read more
  •  541
    Teleosemantics, selection and novel contents
    Biology and Philosophy 34 (3): 36. 2019.
    Mainstream teleosemantics is the view that mental representation should be understood in terms of biological functions, which, in turn, should be understood in terms of selection processes. One of the traditional criticisms of teleosemantics is the problem of novel contents: how can teleosemantics explain our ability to represent properties that are evolutionarily novel? In response, some have argued that by generalizing the notion of a selection process to include phenomena such as operant cond…Read more
  •  393
    Do Constancy Mechanisms Save Distal Content?
    Philosophical Quarterly 69 (275): 409-417. 2019.
    In this journal, Schulte develops a novel solution to the problem of distal content: by virtue of what is a mental representation about a distal object rather than a more proximal cause of that representation? Schulte maintains that in order for a representation to have a distal content, it must be produced by a constancy mechanism, along with two other conditions. I raise three objections to his solution. First, a core component of Schulte's solution is just a restrictive version of Dretske's s…Read more
  •  108
    What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter
    Cambridge University Press. 2019.
    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 m…Read more
  •  428
    There Are No Ahistorical Theories of Function
    Philosophy of Science 86 (5): 1146-1156. 2019.
    Theories of function are conventionally divided up into historical and ahistorical ones. Proponents of ahistorical theories often cite the ahistoricity of their accounts as a major virtue. Here, I argue that none of the mainstream “ahistorical” accounts are actually ahistorical. All of them embed, implicitly or explicitly, an appeal to history. In Boorse’s goal-contribution account, history is latent in the idea of statistical-typicality. In the propensity theory, history is implicit in the idea…Read more
  •  400
    Against Organizational Functions
    Philosophy of Science 84 (5): 1093-1103. 2017.
    Over the last 20 years, several philosophers have developed a new approach to biological functions, the organizational approach. This is not a single theory but a family of theories based on the idea that a trait token can acquire a function by virtue of the way it contributes to a complex, organized system and thereby to its own continued persistence as a token. I argue that the organizational approach faces a serious liberality objection. I examine three different ways organizational theorists…Read more
  •  677
    A Generalized Selected Effects Theory of Function
    Philosophy of Science 84 (3): 523-543. 2017.
    I present and defend the generalized selected effects theory (GSE) of function. According to GSE, the function of a trait consists in the activity that contributed to its bearer’s differential reproduction, or differential retention, within a population. Unlike the traditional selected effects (SE) theory, it does not require that the functional trait helped its bearer reproduce; differential retention is enough. Although the core theory has been presented previously, I go significantly beyond t…Read more
  •  639
    How to Be a Function Pluralist
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (4): 1101-1122. 2018.
    I distinguish two forms of pluralism about biological functions, between-discipline pluralism and within-discipline pluralism. Between-discipline pluralism holds that different theories of function are appropriate for different subdisciplines of biology and psychology. I provide reasons for rejecting this view. Instead, I recommend within-discipline pluralism, which emphasizes the plurality of function concepts at play within any given subdiscipline of biology and psychology.
  •  138
    Despite the voluminous literature on biological functions produced over the last 40 years, few philosophers have studied the concept of function as it is used in neuroscience. Recently, Craver (forthcoming; also see Craver 2001) defended the causal role theory against the selected effects theory as the most appropriate theory of function for neuroscience. The following argues that though neuroscientists do study causal role functions, the scope of that theory is not as universal as claimed. Desp…Read more
  •  809
    Function and Teleology
    In Anya Plutynski & Sahotra Sarkar (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, Blackwell. pp. 525-549. 2007.
    This is a short overview of the biological functions debate in philosophy. While it was fairly comprehensive when it was written, my short book ​A Critical Overview of Biological Functions has largely supplanted it as a definitive and up-to-date overview of the debate, both because the book takes into account new developments since then, and because the length of the book allowed me to go into substantially more detail about existing views.
  •  604
    The Introduction of Information into Neurobiology
    Philosophy of Science 70 (5): 926-936. 2003.
    The first use of the term "information" to describe the content of nervous impulse occurs 20 years prior to Shannon`s (1948) work, in Edgar Adrian`s The Basis of Sensation (1928). Although, at least throughout the 1920s and early 30s, the term "information" does not appear in Adrian`s scientific writings to describe the content of nervous impulse, the notion that the structure of nervous impulse constitutes a type of message subject to certain constraints plays an important role in all of his wr…Read more
  •  276
    Functions Must Be Performed at Appropriate Rates in Appropriate Situations
    with Gualtiero Piccinini
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (1): 1-20. 2014.
    We sketch a novel and improved version of Boorse’s biostatistical theory of functions. Roughly, our theory maintains that (i) functions are non-negligible contributions to survival or inclusive fitness (when a trait contributes to survival or inclusive fitness); (ii) situations appropriate for the performance of a function are typical situations in which a trait contributes to survival or inclusive fitness; (iii) appropriate rates of functioning are rates that make adequate contributions to surv…Read more
  •  558
    What is the value of historical fidelity in restoration?
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 45 (1): 97-100. 2014.
    The following considers the role of historical fidelity in habitat reconstruction efforts. To what extent should habitat reconstruction be guided by the goal of recreating some past state of a damaged ecosystem? I consider Sarkar’s “replacement argument,” which holds that, in most habitat reconstruction efforts, there is little justification for appealing to historical fidelity. I argue that Sarkar does not provide adequate grounds for deprecating historical fidelity relative to other natural va…Read more
  •  27
    For some, biology explains all there is to know about the mind. Yet many big questions remain: is the mind shaped by genes or the environment? If mental traits are the result of adaptations built up over thousands of years, as evolutionary psychologists claim, how can such claims be tested? If the mind is a machine, as biologists argue, how does it allow for something as complex as human consciousness? The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction explores these questions and more, using the…Read more
  •  285
    This book chapter is a short response to a paper by the psychiatrist Nicholas Kontos, on the phenomenon of psychological symptom amplification (PSA). PSA takes place when patients present symptoms to clinicians that they do not actually have, or, perhaps more commonly, they exaggerate symptoms they do have. Kontos argues that, because of modern medical training, it is very difficult for clinicians to recognize that the patient's presented symptoms are exaggerated or nonexistent. I argue that the…Read more