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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1996 47(2):291-302; doi:10.1093/bjps/47.2.291
© 1996 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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Functional Explanation and Virtual Selection

Philip Pettit

Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia

Invoking its social function can explain why we find a certain functional trait or institution only if we can identify a mechanism whereby the playing of the function connects with the explanandum. That is the main claim in the missing-mechanism critique of functionalism. Is it correct? Yes, if functional explanation is meant to make sense of the actual presence of the trait or institution. No, if it is meant to make sense of why the trait or institution is resilient: why we can rely on it to survive various contingencies. The lesson? Social functionalism should be taken, and may have been taken by its founders, as a programme for explaining resilience.


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