Thomas Marre

Biological function ascriptions are often thought to present distinctive philosophical puzzles: they screen off a part’s purpose from merely accidental effects of its presence and they provide a certain kind of explanation. I propose a naive, ahistorical account of functions to resolve these puzzles: the function of a part is what it does. We can help ourselves to this view if we understand function statements as generics. It is, I argue, then their generic form that is responsible for screening off the purpose of a given part from accidental effects. In other words, I take it that one of the problems that function ascriptions are thought to raise is in fact a problem arising from the thorny semantics of the wider class of sentences to which they belong. I then propose a deflationary conception of their explanatory power by distinguishing two often conflated questions: how did a given part come to have the function it has, and what does the function explain. In short, functions have historical explanations but they do not provide historical explanations.

I argue that Kuhn's account of scientific practice is profitably understood as a kind of hinge epistemology: like our epistemic practices more generally, scientific inquiry is made possible precisely by the fact that certain things are not subject to doubt. In Kuhn's own words, ‘dogmatism’ is essential to scientific practice and one of the primary engines of its success. For this reason, I argue that Kuhn's account is a rich source for reflection on the relationship between faith and reason. At the same time, Kuhn has faced objections similar to those which have faced hinge-epistemologists: how can disputes grounded in different, incompatible ‘dogmas’ be rationally resolved? Kuhn's response is similar to one put forward by Duncan Pritchard, but is, I argue, an improvement on it. In particular, the hinges on which deep scientific disagreement turns are for Kuhn certain shared values in light of which debate is possible. The choice among competing dogmas can, I argue, be understood on analogy with a prudential judgement of practical reasoning, i.e., an exercise of phronēsis.