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Full Idea
On one common use of the notion of a function, something can possess a function which it does not, or even cannot, perform. A malformed heart is to pump blood, even if such a heart cannot in fact pump blood.
Gist of Idea
Things are thought to have a function, even when they can't perform them
Source
Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.2)
Book Ref
'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language', ed/tr. Lepore,E/Smith,B [OUP 2008], p.402
A Reaction
One might say that the heart in a dead body had the function of pumping blood, but does it still have that function? Do I have the function of breaking the world 100 metres record, even though I can't quite manage it? Not that simple.
| 5873 | Each thing's function is its end [Aristotle] |
| 5108 | Is ceasing-to-be unnatural if it happens by force, and natural otherwise? [Aristotle] |
| 22380 | Some words, such as 'knife', have a meaning which involves its function [Foot] |
| 10431 | Things are thought to have a function, even when they can't perform them [Sainsbury] |
| 12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
| 6379 | A mummified heart has the teleological function of circulating blood [Polger] |
| 6377 | Teleological notions of function say what a thing is supposed to do [Polger] |
| 14387 | Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan] |