Call for Abstracts: 4th European Advanced Seminar in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 5 – 9 September 2016
Fourth
European Advanced School in
the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EASPLS)
the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EASPLS)
Function and
Malfunction in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and the Social Sciences
Klosterneuburg,
September 5–9, 2016
Directors:
Jean Gayon (Paris) – Alvaro Moreno (San Sebastian)
Co-organizing
institutions
*
Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, University of Exeter
* IAS-Research Center for Life, Mind & Society, University of the Basque
Country, San Sebastian
* Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
(IHPST), Paris-1 Sorbonne
* Institute of Philosophy, Leibniz University Hannover
* Faculty of Sciences and Department of Philosophy/Faculty of
Humanities, University of Geneva
* KLI, Klosterneuburg/Vienna
* IAS-Research Center for Life, Mind & Society, University of the Basque
Country, San Sebastian
* Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
(IHPST), Paris-1 Sorbonne
* Institute of Philosophy, Leibniz University Hannover
* Faculty of Sciences and Department of Philosophy/Faculty of
Humanities, University of Geneva
* KLI, Klosterneuburg/Vienna
Call for papers
The European Advanced School in the Philosophy
of the Life Sciences (EASPLS) will hold its fourth meeting on September 5–9,
2016 at the KLI in Klosterneuburg near Vienna, Austria, on the topic: “Function
and Malfunction in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and the Social
Sciences.”
Young
scholars (PhD students and early post-doctoral researchers) in the history and
philosophy of the life sciences (including medicine) and young social
scientists are invited to apply. Candidates should send a letter of motivation along with their CV, and
a title and abstract of about 500 words in a single file (labeled:
name-easpls2016.pdf) to Isabella Sarto-Jackson:
The deadline for
applications is March 31st, 2016
Applications
will be evaluated and applicants will be notified of the outcome in late
May/beginning of June.
The registration
fee is 570,- € (accommodation in single rooms and lunches are included;
travel expenses and dinners are not included).
Please find
more details at: www.easpls2016.kli.ac.at.
EASPLS:
General presentation
The
European Advanced School for the Philosophy of the Life Sciences is organized
by top level institutions in the philosophy and history of life sciences: the
ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (University of Exeter; the IAS-Research Center for Life, Mind & Society
(University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian); Faculty of Sciences and
Department of Philosophy/Faculty of Humanities (University of Geneva); the Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des
Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST, Paris-1 Sorbonne), the Institute of
Philosophy (University of Hannover); the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution
and Cognition Research (KLI, Klosterneuburg). The EASPLS Advanced School is a
biennial event and aims at fostering research, the advancement of students, and
collaborations in the field of the philosophy of the biomedical sciences,
broadly conceived.
The
venue is located in Klosterneuburg near Vienna, Austria. Accommodation (single
rooms) will be in a hotel in Vienna close to the train stop of a direct train line
to the venue.
The
EASPLS is characterized by its unique format: The schedule mixes presentations
of senior researchers and presentations by PhD students and young post-doctoral
researchers. The selected contributors will be asked to either (1) give a paper
on the topic they propose, or (2) to comment on a senior researcher’s
presentation, or (3) participate in a round table discussion moderated by a
senior researcher (time allocated: senior’s presentation 35’; junior’s
commentary 15’; junior’s presentation 25’; round table discussion with 4
discussants & 1 moderator 90‘).
The best
papers resulting from the meeting will be published in a thematic issue or
section of an international journal in the field.
The Topic
Function and
Malfunction in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences,
and the Social Sciences
and the Social Sciences
Functional
ascriptions and functional explanation have been major topics in philosophy of
science since the 1950s. A turning point was attained in 1973, when Larry
Wright proposed his ‘etiological theory of function’, according to which ‘The
function of X is Z means (a) X is there because it does Z
; (b) Z is a consequence (or result) of X’s being there.’[1] According to Wright, such a definition of function
satisfied three requirements that were essential to him: (1) it offered a
criterion for distinguishing a function from a mere effect; (2) it applied both
to biology and to artifacts; (3) it was able to capture the normativity of
functional ascriptions, that is the implicit assumptions that malfunction is
always a possibility (a given object may have a function, and nevertheless be
unable to accomplish that function).
Shortly after Wright’s article, in 1975, Robert Cummins proposed a very
different definition of function, according to which ascribing a function to
something ‘is to ascribe a capacity to it which is singled out by its role in
an analysis of some capacity of a containing system’[2]. Contrary to the ‘etiological ‘ theory, which
looks backwards, the ‘causal role’ theory of function looks forward. As
Wright’s concept of function, Cummins’ concept applied both to biological and
technical objects, but did not take into account normativity. In open
opposition to Wright, Cummins insisted that functional ascriptions had nothing
to do with the past history of a system, and should be understood exclusively
from the viewpoint of the present organization of a system. Because Cummins
also (and erroneously), reduced Wright’s concept of function to that of
‘selected effect’, Wright’s and Cummins’ seminal papers of were the origin of
an ongoing debate between authors adhering to ‘backward looking’ or
‘evolutionary’ theories of function, and authors defending a ‘forward looking’
or ‘dispositional’ theories of function.
Another philosopher who played an important role was Christopher Boorse,
who proposed in 1976 to define function as the causal contribution of something
to a goal in a teleological system[3]. This concept is close to Cummins’s concept, but
the originality of Boorse was to connect the debate of function with the debate
on health and disease. For Boorse, function is a non-normative concept, itself
part of a non-normative concept of disease and health: disease is no more than
dysfunction; and health is ‘typical functioning’, defined in terms of available
physiological knowledge and statistical normality[4]. Correlatively, for Boorse, in sum, normative
issues come into play only for a subclass of human disease, which he calls
‘illness’. Illness is disease plus subjective and social components[5]. Yet, since Boorse defines disease in terms of statistical abnormal
functioning of a specific trait in comparison with the average functioning of
traits of the same type in individuals of a concrete "reference
class" (members of the same species, gender and age), and health, instead,
as simply the absence of disease, its view raises many difficulties to
establish a clear frontier between healthy (normal) and unhealthy (abnormal)
levels of functioning without adducing subjective and arbitrary considerations.
And in this sense, it is dubious that this approach can be really consistent
with a biologically grounded theory of functions.
This debate on the other hand, goes beyond the domain of Life Sciences and
affects in many aspects nuclear questions of the social sciences. In
particular, the debate about functions and malfunctions has affected directly
the philosophy of technology, questioning whether the biological theories of
function (and malfunction) could or could not be applied to human made
artifacts.
The
purpose of the 4th EASPLS is to reassess the modern philosophical
debate on function in the dual perspective of (1) malfunction (or dysfunction),
and (2) with respect to the use of such concepts in both the biological and the
social sciences, with a particular concern for the interrelations and
interactions between these two fields. Applicants are expected to submit a
title and an abstract that fit with this overall scheme. Here is a list of
particular questions illustrating the general question. This list should be
taken as open rather than exhaustive.
- Should the
concept of function leave room for normativity? If yes, how?
- How does
this relate to reflections about malfunction?
- To what
extent does the debate about health and disease in the philosophy of medicine
meet with the function/malfunction debate?
- How can the
social sciences contribute/have contributed to this debate?
- Speaking of
malfunction seems to imply that there is something like “normal” functioning
(Boorse); can this be a objective concept or not?
- What is the
reference system for the concept of function/malfunction (e.g., levels
of organization below and above the organismal level)?
- To what
extent is it appropriate to speak of function or malfunction in the social or
economical sciences?
- Do we need a
common concept of function and malfunction for the biological, social and
technological domains?
-
Has the philosophical reflection
about malfunction, dysfunction, and abnormality significantly evolved over the
past 40 years?