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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
What Functions Explain: Functional Explanation and Self-Reproducing Systems

What Functions Explain: Functional Explanation and Self-Reproducing Systems

McLaughlin, Peter

Paperback

Series: Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology

PhilosophyHistory & Philosophy of Science

ISBN10: 0521038855
ISBN13: 9780521038850
Publisher: Cambridge
Published: Aug 16 2007
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.89
Height: 0.61 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
This book offers an examination of functional explanation as it is used in biology and the social sciences, and focuses on the kinds of philosophical presuppositions that such explanations carry with them. McLaughlin gives a critical review of the debate on functional explanation in the philosophy of science that has occurred over the past fifty years. He discusses the history of the philosophical question of teleology, and provides a comprehensive review of the postwar literature on functional explanation. The book provides a sophisticated and detailed Aristotelian analysis of our concept of natural functions, and offers a positive contribution to the ongoing debate on the topic.

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