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 Reference
'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.