This bibliography gathers publications over many years from a variety of researchers exploring topics of agency, directionality, and function (among others) with a special emphasis on CASP members. It began with work from teams within the initial Agency, Directionality and Function project and continues to be populated with papers and articles from diverse researchers looking to further develop and expand ways of working interdisciplinarily on the complex theme of teleology.
Included in the bibliography are entries for publications and books that many scholars involved in the Agency, Directionality and Function project recommended as foundational texts in their field of study. We welcome suggestions for additions to the bibliography from CASP members.
Function and Teleology
Catania, K. (2020). Great Adaptations: Star-Nosed Moles, Electric Eels, and Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries Solved. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Craver, C.F. (2013). “Functions and mechanisms: a perspectivalist view.” In Functions: selection and mechanisms. Edited by P. Huneman. Spring Dordrecht, 133–158.
Dawkins, R. (1982).The Extended Phenotype: The Gene as the Unit of Selection.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dearden, R., Jones, A., Giles, S., Lanzetti, A., Grohganz, M., Johanson, Z., Lautenschlager, S., Randle, E., Donoghue, P. C. J., & Sansom, I. J. (2023). The three-dimensionally articulated oral apparatus of a Devonian heterostracan sheds light on feeding in Palaeozoic jawless fishes [Preprint]. Paleontology.
Dresow, M., & Love, A. C. (2023). Teleonomy: Revisiting a Proposed Conceptual Replacement for Teleology. Biological Theory.
Dussault, A. C. (2023). Do Clay Crystals and Rocks Have Functions? Selected Effects Functions, the Service Criterion, and the Twofold Character of Function. In J. Gayon, A. De Ricqlès, & A. C. Dussault (Eds.), Functions: From Organisms to Artefacts (Vol. 32, pp. 135–158). Springer International Publishing.
Fagerberg, H. (2023). Brain dysfunction without function. Philosophical Psychology, 1–13.
Fung, L., Konkol, A., Ishikawa, T., Larson, B. T., Brunet, T., & Goldstein, R. E. (2023). Swimming, Feeding and Inversion of Multicellular Choanoflagellate Sheets. Physical Review Letters, 131(16), 168401.
Gambarotto, A. (2023). Teleology and mechanism: a dialectical approach. Synthese, 201(5), 155.
Gambarotto, A., & Mossio, M. (2022). Enactivism and the Hegelian Stance on Intrinsic Purposiveness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.
Gambarotto, A., & Nahas, A. (2023). Nature and Agency: Towards a Post-Kantian Naturalism. Topoi.
Garson, J. (2016). A Critical Overview of Biological Functions. Switzerland: Springer.
Garson, J. (2022). The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Garson, J. (2022). Do transposable elements have functions of their very own? Biology & Philosophy, 37(3), 20.
Godfrey-Smith, P. (1993). “Functions: consensus without unity.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 74:196–208.
Gould, S.J. and E. Vrba. (1982). “Exaptation--A Missing Term in the Science of Form.” Paleobiology 8(1):4–15.
Gould, S.J. and R.C. Lewontin. (1979). “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Part B: Biological Sciences 205:581–598.
Hempel, C.G. (1965). “The Logic of Functional Analysis.” In Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press, 297–330.
Hill, J., Fonagy, P., Osel, T., Dziobek, I., & Sharp, C. (2023). The social domains organization of mentalizing processes in adolescents: a contribution to the conceptualization of personality function and dysfunction in young people. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, jcpp.13838.
Hill, J., Oderberg, D. S., Gibbins, J. M., & Bojak, I. (2022). Mistake-Making: A Theoretical Framework for Generating Research Questions in Biology, With Illustrative Application to Blood Clotting. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 97, 13.
Hou, J.-B., Hughes, N. C., Hopkins, M. J., & Shu, D. (2023). Gill function in an early arthropod and the widespread adoption of the countercurrent exchange mechanism. Royal Society Open Science, 10(8), 230341.
Hughes, M. P., Kruchek, E. J., Gibbins, J. M., Griffiths, O. V., Abdal, B., & Labeed, F. H. (2022). The Platelet Electrome: Evidence for a Role in Regulation of Function and Surface Interaction. Bioelectricity, 4(3), 153–159.
Hund, A. K., Stretch, E., Smirnoff, D., Roehrig, G. H., & Snell-Rood, E. C. (2023). Broadening the Taxonomic Breadth of Organisms in the Bio-Inspired Design Process. Biomimetics, 8(1), 48.
Johnson, M.R. (2005). Aristotle on Teleology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jonas, H. (1966). The Phenomenon of Life: Towards a Philosophical Biology. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers Inc.