How Biological, Cultural, and Intended Functions Combine 65
we envisage the new device? As a new car device? Or as a long-existent trigger used
in different means of transport? Let us furthermore suppose that triggers must be adjusted
in accordance with parameters such as weight, possible acceleration, and deceleration.
Triggers might then have to be adapted (modifi ed) for each type of car. How should the
trigger adjusted for a new type of car, let us say the new Peugeot 7007, be categorized?
When the Peugeot 7007 is not yet on the market, should we see it as a new device endowed
with the intended function of “Peugeot 7007 airbag trigger,” or should we see it as the
Peugeot 7007 version of a device whose culturally well-established function is to be a car
airbag trigger?
The conclusion of this section is similar to that of the previous section. There is no
clearly delineated area, be it the whole realm of invention or only some part of it, that
could be said to be homogeneous with regard to function, according to the current
distinctions.
4.6 Conclusion
In the vast realm of teleofunctions of material entities, we have looked at three places
where, according to current etiological theories, we should have found boundaries dividing
one sort of function from another. Every time we found no such boundaries. We found
instead mixed functions, functions that were crossing boundaries and mixing elements of
various sorts. This casts doubts either on the notion of function itself or on the distinctions
that present etiological theories of function back up. What is muddled and superfi cial here?
My answer to the question is that the problem lies essentially with the distinctions imposed
by current etiological theories.
Such distinctions arise from identifying functions according to their origins. This way
of identifying functions is intuitive, as our introductory dialogue shows. Moreover, it has
been reinforced by SEL, which has endorsed the “one type of function, one type of origin”
principle, by introducing natural selection (the mechanism supposedly at the origin of
biological functions) in its defi nition of biological function. However, as we suggest in
our discussion about biological artifacts, another attitude and another perspective are pos-
sible. The confused origin of many functions (a mix of intentions, sociocultural mecha-
nisms, and natural selection) does not prove that the notion of “function” refers to nothing
really deep and important, and that it therefore has no scientifi c value. This confused origin
may, on the contrary, be an argument for aiming at a more abstract notion of “teleofunc-
tion” than those provided by current etiological theories. A more abstract notion of “teleo-
function,” which would ignore the question of origins, could help us to understand why
identifying functions is so useful when faced with relatively simple high-level phenomena
that depend on complex mechanisms operating at different levels.