Functions and Functional Explanations

Mechanistic explanation is at present the received view of scientific explanation. One of its central features is the idea that mechanistic explanations are both “downward looking” and “upward looking”: they explain by offering information about the internal constitution of the mechanism as well as the larger environment in which the mechanism is situated. That is, they offer both constitutive and contextual explanatory information. Adequate mechanistic explanations, on this view, accommodate the full range of explanatory factors both “above” and “below” the target phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that mechanistic explanation cannot furnish both constitutive and contextual information simultaneously, because these are different types of explanation with distinctly different aims. Claims that they can, I argue, depend on several intertwined confusions concerning the nature of explanation. Particularly, such claims tend to conflate mechanistic and functional explanation, which I argue ought to be understood as distinct. Conflating them threatens to oversell the explanatory power of mechanisms and obscures the means by which they explain. I offer two broad reasons in favor of distinguishing mechanistic and functional explanation: the first concerns the direction of explanation of each, and the second concerns the type of questions to which these explanations offer answers. I suggest an alternative picture on which mechanistic explanation is understood as fundamentally constitutive, and according to which an adequate understanding of a phenomenon typically requires supplementing the mechanistic explanation with a functional explanation.

Some causal explanations are non‐committal in that mention of a property in the explanans conveys information about the causal origin of the explanandum even if the property in question plays no causal role for the explanandum. Programme explanations are a variety of non‐committal causal (NCC) explanations. Yet their interest is very limited since, as I will argue in this paper, their range of applicability is in fact quite narrow. However there is at least another variety of NCC explanations, causal orientation explanations, which offer a plausible model for many explanations in the special sciences.

Kaplan and Craver (Philos Sci 78(4):601–627, 2011) and Piccinini and Craver (Synthese, 183(3):283–311, 2011) argue that only mechanistic explanations of cognition are genuine causal explanations, because only evidence of mechanisms reveals the causal structure of cognition. I first argue that this claim is grounded in a commitment to the mechanistic account of causality, which cannot be endorsed by a defender of causal-nonmechanistic explanations. Then, I defend the epistemic theory of causality, which holds that causal explanations are not genuine to the extent that they reveal mechanistic causal structure, but, rather, to the extent that they have evidential support and yield successful prediction, explanation, and control inferences. Finally, I enact an epistemic unification of causal explanation in cognitive science, according to which both mechanistic and nonmechanistic explanations of cognition can be genuine causal explanations.

In this chapter, the author responds to Jon Elster's criticism of his use of functional explanation in his account of historical materialism. Elster rejects the association between Marxism and functional explanation, arguing that there is no scope for functional explanation in social science. He therefore concludes that the Marxist theory of society and history should abandon functional explanation and that it should, instead, draw for its explanations on the resources of game theory. The author offers an explanation of historical materialist theory that he attributes, on a textual basis, to Karl Marx, and that he articulates and defends in his book Karl Marx's Theory of History. He asserts that game theory cannot replace functional explanation within Marxist social analysis and that it has no place at the heart of historical materialism, alongside functional explanation.

Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. 1. Weber and Durkheim 1.1 Weber and Durkheim: a methodological comparison 1.2 Why Weber and Durkheim? 1.3 Methodology and research practice in Weber and Durkheim 1.4 'How' Weber and Durkheim? 2. Analyzing Protestants and Catholics 2.1 Durkheim: Protestants, Catholics - and suicide 2.2 Weber: Protestants, Catholics - and capitalism 3. 'Social ontology' 3.1 Weber: a chaos perception 3.2 Durkheim: a cosmos perception 4. Epistemology 4.1 Durkheim: inductivism 4.2 Weber: neo-Kantianism 5. Science and values 5.1 Weber: the gulf between 'Is' and 'Ought' 5.2 Durkheim: the bridge between 'Is' and 'Ought' 6. Methodological individualism 6.1 Weber: methodological individualism 6.2 Durkheim: methodological collectivism 7. Types of explanation 7.1 Durkheim: functional and causal explanations 7.2 Weber: intentional and causal explanations 8. Formation of concepts 8.1 Weber: ideal types 8.2 Durkheim: generic concepts 9. Laws 9.1 Durkheim: laws as an end 9.2 Weber: laws as means 10. Weber and Durkheim: a methodological comparison 10.1 Weber and Durkheim: two methodologies, two sociologies? 10.2 Methodological principles and research practice in Weber and Durkheim. Bibliography.

The discounting principle states that ‘the role of a given cause in producing a given effect is discounted if other plausible causes are present’ (Kelley, 1972, p. 8). The principle has only been tested with cases where the two explanations are of the same kind (i.e., causal explanations). However, explanations of properties of objects, people, or events often involve functions. Zebras have stripes in order to be better camouflaged. Humans have eyebrows to keep sweat from running into their eyes. Adrenaline is secreted in order to modulate fight and flight responses. Thus, what happens when we are faced with two different kinds of explanation for the same property: one functional and one causal? People evaluated explanations of properties for natural kinds and artefacts. Functional explanations were discounted in favour of causal explanations, however this was only true for properties of artefacts. The presence of an alternative explanation for properties of natural kinds did not affect the plausibility of either kind of explanation.

The philosophical characterization of the explanation of behavior holds that two explanatory relations are central to its intelligibility: rationality and causality. In the present article, we will assess how fitting this characterization is regarding explanations of behaviors provided in contextual psychotherapies. Our assessment will yield negative answers in several respects. First, we will argue that, given that the goal of these therapies is not holistic understanding or normative assessment, rationality does not play a substantive role in its explanations of behavior. Second, causality is secondary in the diagnostic stage. We will argue that, at this point, the function of the problematic behaviors is what is trying to be understood. Third, causality does play a role in the intervention stage of the therapeutical process. However, we claim that this role is not the same as the folk model of philosophical characterization assumes. On a more positive note, we suggest that explanations of behavior in functional contextual therapy are hybrid, with functional explanations at the diagnostic stage and causal explanations at the intervention stage.

Functional explanations are shown to be descriptive or pseudo-explanatory in many instances. When genuinely explanatory they can be replaced by causal explanations which make the underlying assumptions clearer. As illustration some occurrences of in sociology are explained both functionally and causally. T his paper is an attempt to explain one branch of the phenomenon known as functionalism and is an exercise in the sociology of knowledge. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to label it an exercise in the anthropology of knowledge since, to enhance my anthropological objectivity, I shall limit my investigation to the sister field of sociology. First, I shall make clear what I mean by the words and explanation. Second, in a brief review of several papers by prominent sociologists I shall show that social criticism is often a latent function of their functional analyses. Third, I shall reanalyze the same papers to show how they can all be converted into causal analyses. And fourth, I shall offer a causal explanation for some sociological functionalism. The idea developed here was suggested by Dore's provocative article Function and Cause, in which he concludes that for sociolo-

In a previous article (Axmacher, 2013) I argued that neuroscientific and psychoanalytic explanations are in general epistemologically consistent with each other, even if psychoanalytic claims refer to (typically unconscious) reasons, whereas neuroscientific claims are about causes. I claimed that hermeneutic (psychoanalytic) explanations are not inconsistent with causal (neuroscientific) explanations even if they are typically given as “deferred reconstructions”–in other words, as post-hoc explanations of feelings, symptoms or behavioral patterns that initially appear irrational, random and senseless. Specifically, I claimed that psychoanalytic explanations—like (neuro)scientific explanations—are successful if and only if they can determine the sufficient conditions which give rise to the feeling, symptom, or behavioral pattern in question.

Several articles have recently appeared arguing that there really are no viable alternatives to mechanistic explanation in the biological sciences (Kaplan and Bechtel; Kaplan and Craver). We argue that mechanistic explanation is defined by localization and decomposition. We argue further that systems neuroscience contains explanations that violate both localization and decomposition. We conclude that the mechanistic model of explanation needs to either stretch to now include explanations wherein localization or decomposition fail or acknowledge that there are counterexamples to mechanistic explanation in the biological sciences.

It is widely assumed that mechanistic explanations are causal explanations. Many prominent new mechanists endorse interventionism as the correct analysis of explanatory causal models in biology and other fields. This article argues that interventionism is not entirely satisfactory in this regard. A case study of Jacob and Monod’s operon model shows that at least some important mechanistic explanations in biology present significant contrasts with the interventionist account. This result motivates a more inclusive approach to mechanistic explanation, allowing for noncausal aspects.

The nature of explanation is an important area of inquiry in philosophy of science. Consensus has been that explanation in the cognitive and brain sciences is typically a special case of causal explanation, specifically, mechanistic explanation. But recently there has been increased attention to computational explanation in the brain sciences and to whether that can be understood as a variety of mechanistic explanation. After laying out the stakes for a proper understanding of scientific explanation, we consider the status of computational explanation in the brain sciences by comparing the mechanistic proposal to computational accounts advanced by Piccinini, Milkowski, Cao, Chirimuuta and Ross. We argue that many of these accounts of computational explanation in neuroscience can satisfy the same explanatory criteria as causal explanations, but not all. This has implications for interpretation of those computational explanations that satisfy different criteria.

People are excused from moral blame for the harm they are said to have caused if they could not have done otherwise. Such excuses rely on causal explanations deriving mostly from social and biological sciences whose paradigms are probabilistic, disjunctive, and combine dispositional and circumstantial factors according to the variance accounted for by each type of factor. The more complete the explanation, the less choice the harm-doer seems to have and therefore the less moral blame is warranted. Thus, the biological bases of people's behaviour, their earlier socialization, and their prior choices reduce the scope and severity of moral blame - but have no effect on judgments of right and wrong. Fairness also requires a similar analysis of the behaviour of moral judges whose standards vary with their dispositions, social class, and culture. It follows that moral assessments are joint products of both ethics and the social and biological sciences, with neither group able to make fair moral assessments of people's behaviour without help from the other.

The fascinating diversity of social behavior displayed by animals has long attracted the attention of researchers from different disciplines. Despite the common interest in the topic, some disciplines have focused more on the ultimate (functional) explanations for social interactions while others have mainly focused on the proximate (mechanistic) explanations for these behaviors. However, in order to understand how natural selection shapes the mechanisms underlying social behavior, it is necessary to use an integrative approach examining both mechanistic and functional explanations for behavior. The aim of my Ph.D. project was to understand the proximate and ultimate causes of social behavior variation in the Caribbean cleaning goby Elacatinus prochilos. First, I used an integrative approach that combined ecological, behavioral, cognitive and brain morphology data in order to unveil the potential mechanisms underlying the behavioral phenotypic variation observed in the system. Second, I used a within and between species comparative approach for investigating how brain measurements vary across closely related species with different habitat-feeding phenotypes. Individuals in the species Elacatinus prochilos may adopt two habitat-feeding phenotypes: cleaning or sponge-dwelling. Cleaning gobies, in general, are flexible in their habitat use and obtain most of their food by eating ectoparasites off other reef fish species. In contrast, sponge-dwelling gobies live in groups of up to 70 individuals and do express a clear size-based hierarchy. In the general introduction, I provide some background data that revealed the differences in habitat use, social behavior and group structure between the two phenotypes. In the first chapter, I exposed individuals from both phenotypes to standardized group conditions in the laboratory and asked whether the differences in their natural social and ecological environment impose constraints on adult behavioral flexibility. In the second chapter, I tested whether the habitat-feeding phenotype differences predicted learning performance in two discriminatory two-choice tasks that differed with respect to the relevant cues available to identify the correct choice. In the third and final chapter, I compared the brain structure of the two E. prochilos phenotypes to that of two other species in the genera that also differ in the habitat-feeding mode: the obligatory cleaner Elacatinus evelynae and the obligatory sponge-dwelling Elacatinus chancei. Surprisingly, I did not find any strong evidence that the differences between E. prochilos phenotypes are related to differences in habitat preference, social decision rules, associative learning skills, and brain structure. This means that at this moment, I cannot answer the question of how the differences between phenotypes work. Since I could not find differences in the mechanisms, or in brain structure, it is also currently impossible to answer what differentiation in mechanisms drove the evolution of a sponge-dwelling clade versus a coral-dwelling cleaning clade. However, I found differences in brain areas related to the visual/lateral line sensory axis between the obligatory cleaning versus the obligatory sponge-dwelling species, which revealed independent changes in functionally correlated brain areas that might be ecologically adaptive. In conclusion, the results of my study provide a challenge for various concepts that link individual experience to constraints in behavioral flexibility. Understanding why the gobies are an apparent exception will be the major challenge for future research.

Philosophers have largely abandoned the claim that the special sciences will ultimately reduce to microphysics in favour of the view that the special sciences trade in functional explanations. However, a careful examination of scientific practice reveals that the explanatory strategy of the special sciences is neither reductionist nor functionalist, but mechanistic. Mechanistic explanations appeal to active material entities organized so as to produce the target phenomena. We claim that phenomenal consciousness will also succumb to mechanistic explanation: it will turn out to be the activity of specific neural mechanisms in the brain. In this chapter we explore the implications of this perspective for the ontology of consciousness, arguing that it has a complex structural essence.