On Unifi cation: Taking Technical Functions as Objective 85
- if this execution of p leads successfully to its goals, this success is due in part to
x’s capacity to φ.
This application of the ontological unifi ed ICE theory resembles the ontological interpreta-
tion of Cummins’s theory as given in section 5.4, providing it with a more acceptable face.
One difference is that Cummins’s condition that an item should actually be capable of
executing the capacity corresponding to its function is replaced by the more liberal condi-
tion that the item has this capacity (thus allowing for malfunctioning as characterized in
section 5.6). A limitation of the unifi ed ontological ICE theory is that Cummins’s “contain-
ing system” s should always be taken as a goal-directed pattern. This application of the
ontological unifi ed ICE theory also resembles Searle’s (1995) function theory and possibly
also the goal-contribution analysis of functions of Christopher Boorse (2002). Yet it is not
a theory in which biological functions can count as ontologically objective, since it refers
to mental states of the designators—the singling out of the patterns p—relative to which
items have their functions.
Hence as it stands, biological functions may in a unifi ed ICE-like theory remain epis-
temic objective relations that items have relative to context, but they are then ontologically
subjective, which may for some be reason to reject this theory in the fi rst place.
5.8 Conclusion
In this contribution I show that for a class of epistemic theories of technical functions
about the ascription of these functions by agents to artifacts one can construct counterpart
ontological theories in which technical functions are relations that artifacts have relative
to context. In these ontological theories, judgments about technical functions are epistemi-
cally objective in the sense of being true on the basis of facts and not on the basis of the
attitudes, feelings, and points of view of the makers and the hearers of the judgments. Yet
technical functions remain in these ontological theories to depend on the mental states of
their designers and in this sense technical functions are ontologically subjective.
With this result, one can argue that the often-made contrast that biological functions are
objective nonrelational properties that biological items have independent of the mental
states of agents, and that technical functions are subjective relations that agents ascribe to
artifacts relative to the mental states of agents, to a large extent can be avoided. If etiologi-
cal theories are taken as acceptable function theories in biology, and the ontological ICE
theory as acceptable in technology, then both biological and technical functions are epis-
temically objective relations that biological items and artifacts have, respectively, relative
to context. The difference that remains is that biological functions are ontologically objec-
tive and technical functions are ontologically subjective relations.
In this contribution I also present a new approach toward arguing that theories of techni-
cal functions can accommodate the phenomenon of malfunctioning. On this approach an