Rethinking Biological Functions: A Goal-Contribution Approach and Its Systemic Implications

23 October 2024

Rethinking Biological Functions: A Goal-Contribution Approach and Its Systemic Implications

Cross-posted at The Brains Blog Introduction: The Role of Functions in Biology and Philosophy Biological functions play a critical role in our understanding of living organisms and their traits. Whether we’re talking about the heart, lungs, or brain, their “function” helps an organism survive, grow, reproduce, and sometimes assist others. But can we explain more […]

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Do forests play a role in the continental hydrological cycle in tropical regions?

20 March 2024

Do forests grow where it rains, or does it rain where forests grow? This was the title given by Antonio Nobre, a climate researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, to one of his texts on the role of the Amazon rainforest in climate regulation (Instituto Socioambiental (Brazil), 2008). Nobre often emphasizes, in his […]

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New Paper (2023), C. Saborido, M. Heras-Escribano, Affordances and organizational functions

12 January 2023

New Paper (2023), C. Saborido, M. Heras-Escribano, Affordances and organizational functions

Forthcoming in Biology and Philosophy and available as a preprint here. AbstractIn this paper, we bring together the concepts of affordance from ecologicalpsychology and function from the organizational approach to philosophy ofbiology into a single integrative framework. This integration allows us toaccount for the biological basis of the notion of affordance, offeringtheoretical tools to address […]

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