Biological and Cultural Proper Functions in Comparative Perspective 47
bution of proper function therefore seems perfectly straightforward, except that the artifacts
in question are not actually able to perform their alleged function. For example, part of
the proper function of communion wafers is to transubstantiate into the actual body of
Christ in the course of the Christian religious ritual of the Eucharist. On the assumption
that this is physically and metaphysically impossible, no communion wafer has ever per-
formed this function or ever will. Similar examples can be found in religious and ritual
contexts worldwide, and include all sorts of good luck charms, love potions, protective
amulets, and so on. This phenomenon is also widespread in more mundane spheres of
activity. Medicines, cosmetics, and nutritional supplements seem to be particularly prone
to them. A well-known example is Linus Pauling’s (1970, 1996) famous claim that vitamin
C in large doses prevents and cures colds, as well as a host of other ailments including
cancer. This undoubtedly had a huge effect on the reproduction of vitamin C, which was
(and is) packaged in larger dosages for this use. But almost four decades later the scientifi c
jury is still out as to whether vitamin C really does what Pauling claimed for it. So some
or all of Pauling’s claims may well represent phantom functions of vitamin C. Appliances
are also subject to phantom functionality. Griffi ths (1993: 420) gives the example of the
tapered tails of early racing cars that were thought—falsely—to reduce their drag
coeffi cient.
Phantom functions pose a much greater challenge than unintended (latent) functions
because they cast doubt on the idea—essential to the notion of biological fi tness—that
successful performance is a necessary criterion. One option is to say that phantom func-
tional artifacts are actually function-less. But this would require us to ignore the fact that
phantom functional artifacts have perfectly normal histories of use and reproduction con-
tingent on that use. Moreover, many artifacts that do perform successfully barely perform
successfully. From this point of view, phantom functional artifacts are only the limiting
case of what is in fact a continuum of more or less successful performance. So to deny
that phantom functions are functions would simply be an ad hoc move to save the biologi-
cal model of proper function in the face of obvious disanalogies between biology and
culture.
Another option is to revise our formula again to make the successful performance
condition disjunctive so that merely being believed to perform successfully is also
allowed.
A current token of an artifact type has the proper function of producing an effect of a
given type just in case either producing this effect or being believed to produce it
contributed to the use of past tokens of this type of artifact, and thereby contributed to
the reproduction of such artifacts.
But this will work only if all phantom functional artifacts are believed by their makers
and/or users to actually do what they are supposed to do. Unfortunately this is not neces-
sarily the case. Material culture is pervasively social, and people often have reasons or