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Full Idea
The function of anything is what it alone can do, or what it can do better than anything else.
Clarification
'Function' is the Greek word 'ergon'
Gist of Idea
A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things
Source
Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353a)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Republic', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 1993], p.40
A Reaction
I take this concept to be the lynchpin of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Note that it arises earlier, in Plato. Perhaps he should say what it is 'meant to do'.
| 5838 | A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
| 2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
| 33 | Each named function has a distinctive excellence attached to it [Aristotle] |
| 23909 | Wearing a shoe is its intrinsic use, and selling it (as a shoe) is its coincidental use [Aristotle] |
| 398 | Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function [Aristotle] |
| 15772 | A thing's active function is its end [Aristotle] |
| 22381 | Being a good father seems to depend on intentions, rather than actual abilities [Foot] |
| 3505 | The function of a heart depends on what we want it to do [Searle] |