How Biological, Cultural, and Intended Functions Combine 61
such function disappear. Mixed functions cannot divide into two or three autonomous
subfunctions (biological, artifactual, or cultural), each with its specifi c history. The disap-
pearance of mixed functions would thus not result in a positive simplifi cation; it would
mean becoming blind to certain high-level phenomena.
At the end of his article Sperber questions why our prototypical artifacts are tools and
machines. He suggests that our failure to acknowledge biological artifacts, despite their
practical importance and their number, may come from a Stone Age bias, from the long
Paleolithic period when the only artifacts were tools made out of inert material. Whatever
the case, it is true that biological artifacts, that is, items possessing functions that are both
biological and artifactual, are numerous, and this is suffi cient reason to abandon all hopes
of obtaining a scientifi cally valid classifi cation of functions by separating the biological
from the artifactual and the cultural.
In the mixed functions of biological artifacts, however, some selection is always
involved. It may therefore be thought that a better way to separate functions would be to
distinguish selected or propagated functions from purely intended ones. But, as we will
see now, this distinction too is inoperative.
4.4 The History of a Typical Artifactual Function
Many artifact types have a very simple history. First, an object was invented to do F;
second, objects identical to it were mass produced and advertised as tools for doing F;
third, people bought these objects and used them almost exclusively to do F; and fourth,
such objects have continued to be produced, sold, and used as F-doers undergoing possibly
some slight modifi cations at some time or another. Let us suppose that peelers have such
a simple history. Let us suppose that one day a certain Tom Smith had the idea of creating
a peeler, and that he then designed it and succeeded in convincing someone to produce it
and advertise it as a tool for peeling potatoes, carrots, and so forth. Let us suppose that
this was the beginning of the story of peelers that then continued as described. The func-
tion of peelers seems to raise no problems; from start to fi nish it has been to peel potatoes
and similar vegetables. However, the trouble begins as soon as one asks whether the func-
tion is an intended one or a culturally established one. At the beginning of the story it was,
it is supposed, an intended function, but what is it now? The answer appears to be that it
is a culturally established function independent of the previously intended one. In fact one
does not need to know the story told here to know that the tools are peelers. It would not
change anything to be told that the intended function of such objects, what they were
invented for, was to extract the last coat of rubber that remains stuck to some device when
collecting rubber. Only recent facts are relevant for establishing the proper function of
such a device. Indeed only information about the very recent past will lead one to revise
one’s judgment. Mary, seeing John peeling potatoes with a device looking somewhat