Donald Regan's book is a study of forms of utilitarian theory and of properties to which these forms may aspire. He deals exclusively with “fully objective” theories that seek to systematize and set conditions for obligations that an agent is supposed to lie under as a consequence of features of situations in which he finds himself, with no dependence on his possibly defective beliefs, attitudes, and values. Metaethical questions concerning the nature of these obligations are not raised. And practical problems (...) that could be encountered in attempts to apply these theories receive very little attention. They are said to lie outside the main project of the book which is to explain and then to circumvent a certain apparent logical impasse that utilitarianisms ca. 1980 are supposed to confront. The book consists for the most part of abstract, often very long and difficult, arguments, and detailed elaborations of a small number of minimally specified, highly artificial cases of the sort now common in semi-formal utilitarian theory. In the present note, while leaving unquestioned and unstated the presuppositions of Regan's book, I first outline its central two-stage “argument”. Next I explain several distinctions important to issues it addresses and relate these distinctions to several of Regan's theses. I then discuss prima facie cases against his main claim, according to which the apparent impasse that utilitarianisms confront is circumvented by a new utilitarian theory designed for the task. (shrink)

Rules serve many important functions in society. One such function is to codify, and make public and enforceable, a society's desired prescriptions and proscriptions. This codification means that rules come with predefined punishments administered by third parties. We argue that when we look at how third parties punish rule violations, we see that rules and their punishments often serve dual functions. They support and help to maintain cooperation as it is usually theorized, but they also facilitate the domination of marginalized (...) others. We begin by reviewing literature on rules and third-party punishment, arguing that a great deal of punishment research has neglected to consider the unique power of codified rules. We also argue that by focusing on codified rules, it becomes clear that the enforcement of such rules via third-party punishment is often used to exert control, punish retributively, and oppress outgroup members. By challenging idealized theory of rules as facilitators of social harmony, we highlight their role in satisfying personal punishment motives, and facilitating discrimination in a way that is uniquely justifiable to those who enforce them. (shrink)

According to a familiar argument, iterated prisoner's dilemmas of known finite lengths resolve for ideally rational and well-informed players: They would defect in the last round, anticipate this in the next to last round and so defect in it, and so on. But would they anticipate defections even if they had been cooperating? Not necessarily, say recent critics. These critics "lose" the backward-induction paradox by imposing indicative interpretations on rationality and information conditions. To regain it I propose subjunctive interpretations. To (...) solve it I stress that implications for ordinary imperfect players are limited. (shrink)

Packed with ideas designed to help children learn to sing, this booklet offers criteria for selecting songs, strategies to bring out the best in children's voices, and suggestions for games, ideas, and resources.

Maximizers in isolated Prisoner's Dilemmas are doomed to frustration. But in Braybrooke's view maximizers might do better in a series, securing Pareto-optimal arrangements if not from the very beginning, at least eventually. Given certain favourable special conditions, it can be shown according to Braybrooke and shown even without question-begging motivational or value assumptions, that in a series of Dilemmas maximizers could manage to communicate a readiness to reciprocate, generate thereby expectations of reciprocation, and so give rise to optimizing reciprocations which, (...) in due course, would reinforce expectations, the net result of all this being an increasingly stable practice to mutual benefit. In this way neighbours could learn to be good neighbours: they could learn to respect each other's property, to engage in reciprocal assistance, and perhaps even to make and keep promises covering a range of activities. So maximizers are, Braybrooke holds, capable of a society of sorts. Out of the ashes they might build something. But even under favourable conditions they could not build much and most conditions would defeat them almost entirely, for many-person Dilemmas whether isolated or in series would be quite beyond them, question-begging motivational assumptions aside. In settings at all like those in which we live, utility maximization assuming only ‘traditional’ motivation is self-defeating without remedy, and most certainly not an adequate basis for social life.' The probable inference from as a conception of individual rationality: for surely truly rational agents would be if not perfectly well designed at least better designed for communal living than utility maximizers would be assuming only ‘traditional’, non-question-begging values or motivation. Or, if this inference is denied and maximization is not challenged as a conception of rationality, we can conclude instead, Braybrooke has more recently suggested, that the advice, ‘Be rational,’ is incomplete, and when addressed to groups should be supplemented by, ‘And be somewhat ‘untraditional’ in your values; respect at least some rules that would make coordination and cooperation possible even in many-person interaction problems.’. (shrink)

The purpose of this special issue and the conference that inspired it was to address the issue of conceptual integration in a science of consciousness. We felt this to be important, for while current efforts to scientifically investigate consciousness are taking place in an interdisciplinary context, it often seems as though the very terms being used to sustain a sense of interdisciplinary cooperation are working against it. This is because it is this very array of common concepts that generates a (...) sense of unity among consciousness researchers, despite the fact the concepts mean different things in different disciplines. These Concepts of Consciousness include the following: realism, representation, intentionality, information, control, memory and self. Given this list, we believed we could best approach the issue of potential conceptual integration by addressing each concept from different perspectives and asking the following: how do uses of the concept differ, must these meanings be synthesized in order for there to be a unified science of consciousness, is a unified conceptual scheme necessary to establish an independent science of consciousness, is a unified conceptual scheme possible, if it is not possible, why not, and if it is possible, what might it look like? To this end we invited, for each concept, two scholars who made extensive use of the identified concept in their work. The papers entailed in this special issue constitute the outcome of this effort, and in what follows we offer a brief examination of possible forms of integration the papers seem to collectively suggest. (shrink)

Why do people moralize harmless behaviors? Although people rely on cooperative principles in making their moral judgments, I argue that self-interest likely plays a role even in these judgments. I suggest potential lines of research that might examine the role of self-interest in puritanical morality.

Xunzi 荀子 provided naturalistic answers to questions regarding human sociality and our characteristic “groupishness” (qun 羣). Central to his theories were so-called “social divisions and righteousness” (fenyi 分義), which can be interpreted as a uniquely human package of “cultural technology” produced via cultural evolution to suppress intragroup conflict stemming from what Xunzi calls “the mind of covetous comparison” (liangyi zhi xin 兩疑之心). For Xunzi, fenyi is the uniquely human attribute which kickstarts a salutary causal chain which facilitates prosociality and the (...) upscaling of cooperation, and ultimately results in human ecological dominance. This essay will argue that an incipient form of cultural evolution is discoverable in the Xunzi, and moreover that a solution to the problem of the origin of the “ritual and righteousness” (liyi 禮義) cultural package derives neatly from the incipient cultural evolution of the Xunzi. That is to say, while this solution is not explicitly adduced in the Xunzi, it is nonetheless consistent with Xunzian ideas and is an improvement on the much-lambasted solution Xunzi actually gives, according to which “the former kings hated … chaos, and so they established rituals and righteousness.”. (shrink)

I have maintained that some but not all prisoners' dilemmas are side-by-side Necomb problems. The present paper argues that, similarly, some but not all versions of Newcomb's Problem are prisoners' dilemmas in which Taking Two and Predicting Two make an equilibrium that is dispreferred by both the box-chooser and predictor to the outcome in which only one box is taken and this is predicted. I comment on what kinds of prisoner's dilemmas Newcomb's Problem can be, and on opportunities that results (...) reached may open for kinds of cooperative reasoning in versions of Newcomb's Problem. (shrink)

This paper is about David Gauthier’s concept of constrained maximization. Attending to his most detailed and careful account, I try to say how constrained maximization works, and how it might be changed to work better. In section I, that detailed account is quoted along with amplifying passages. Difficulties of interpretation are explained in section II. An articulation, a spelling out, of Gauthier's account is offered in section III to deal with these difficulties. Next, in section IV, constrained maximization thus articulated (...) is tested on several choice problems and shown to be seriously wanting. It appears that there are prisoners’ dilemmas in which constrained maximizers would not cooperate to mutual advantage, but would interact sub-optimally just as straight-maximizers would. ‘Coordination problems’ are described with which constrained maximizers might, especially if transparent to one another, not be able to cope–problems in which they might not be able to make up their minds to do anything at all. And I prove that there are prisoners’ dilemmas that, though possible for real agents and for straight maximizers, are not possible for constrained maximizers, so that agents’ internalising dispositions of constrained maximization could not be of help in connection with such possibly impending dilemmas. Taking constrained maximization as it stands, there are many problems for which it does not afford the ‘moral solutions’ with which Gauthier would have it replace Hobbesian political ones. After displaying these shortcomings of constrained maximization as presently designed, I sketch, in section V, possible revisions that would reduce them, stressing that these revisions would not be cost-free. Whether finishing the job of fixing up and making precise constrained maximization would be worth the considerable trouble it would involve lies beyond the issues taken up in this paper. So, of course, do substantive comparisons of constrained maximization, perfected and made precise, and straight maximization. (shrink)

Since the dawn of molecular biology, cancer therapy has focused on druggable targets. Despite some remarkable successes, cell‐level evolution remains a potent antagonist to this approach. We suggest that a deeper understanding of the breakdown of cooperation can synergize the evolutionary and druggable‐targets approaches. Complexity requires cooperation, whether between cells of different species (symbiosis) or between cells of the same organism (multicellularity). Both forms of cooperation may be associated with nutrient scarcity, which in turn may be associated with a chemiosmotic (...) metabolism. A variety of examples from modern organisms supports these generalities. Indeed, mammalian cancers—unicellular, glycolytic, and fast‐replicating—parallel these examples. Nutrient scarcity, chemiosmosis, and associated signaling may favor cooperation, while under conditions of nutrient abundance a fermentative metabolism may signal the breakdown of cooperation. Manipulating this metabolic milieu may potentiate the effects of targeted therapeutics. Specific opportunities are discussed in this regard, including avicins, a novel plant product. (shrink)

Do experiences with nature –– from wilderness backpacking to plants in a preschool to a wetland lesson on frogs, promote learning? Until recently, claims outstripped evidence on this question. But the field has matured, not only substantiating previously unwarranted claims but deepening our understanding of the cause-and-effect relationship between nature and learning. Hundreds of studies now bear on this question, and converging evidence strongly suggests that experiences of nature boost academic learning, personal development, and environmental stewardship. This brief integrative review (...) summarizes recent advances and the current state of our understanding. The research on personal development and environmental stewardship is compelling although not quantitative. Report after report –– from independent observers as well as participants themselves –– indicate shifts in perseverance, problem-solving, critical thinking, leadership, teamwork, and resilience. Similarly, over fifty studies point to nature playing a key role in the development of pro-environmental behavior, particularly by fostering an emotional connection to nature. In academic contexts, nature-based instruction outperforms traditional instruction. The evidence here is particularly strong, including experimental evidence; evidence across a wide range of samples and instructional approaches; outcomes such as standardized test scores and graduation rates; and evidence for specific explanatory mechanisms and active ingredients. Nature may promote learning by improving learners’ attention, levels of stress, self-discipline, interest, and enjoyment in learning, and physical activity and fitness. Nature also appears to provide a calmer, quieter, safer context for learning; a warmer, more cooperative context for learning; and a combination of “loose parts” and autonomy that fosters developmentally beneficial forms of play. It is time to take nature seriously as a resource for learning — particularly for students not effectively reached by traditional instruction. (shrink)

The purpose of this special issue and the conference that inspired it was to address the issue of conceptual integration in a science of consciousness. We felt this to be important, for while current efforts to scientifically investigate consciousness are taking place in an interdisciplinary context, it often seems as though the very terms being used to sustain a sense of interdisciplinary cooperation are working against it. This is because it is this very array of common concepts that generates a (...) sense of unity among consciousness researchers, despite the fact the concepts mean different things in different disciplines. These Concepts of Consciousness include the following: realism, representation, intentionality, information, control, memory and self. Given this list, we believed we could best approach the issue of potential conceptual integration by addressing each concept from different perspectives and asking the following: how do uses of the concept differ, must these meanings be synthesized in order for there to be a unified science of consciousness, is a unified conceptual scheme necessary to establish an independent science of consciousness, is a unified conceptual scheme possible, if it is not possible, why not, and if it is possible, what might it look like? To this end we invited, for each concept, two scholars who made extensive use of the identified concept in their work. The papers entailed in this special issue constitute the outcome of this effort, and in what follows we offer a brief examination of possible forms of integration the papers seem to collectively suggest. (shrink)

Glowacki's account overlooks the role of religion in the regulation of cooperation, tolerance, and peace values. We interrogate three premises of Glowacki's argument and suggest that approaching religion as an adaptive system reveals how religious commitments and practices likely had a more substantial impact on the evolution of peace and conflict than currently presumed.

This essay presents the analysis of conflict history over freshwater in several drainage basins across the planet. As will be demonstrated in this essay, unilateral water policies have proved to reduce the role and prospect of water treaties and international water sharing regimes, and led to political tensions and conflicts. Using the case studies of conflict history in the Aral Sea Basin, the Jordan River Basin, the Ganges-Brahmaputra River system and the Tigris-Euphrates River Basin, the author assesses a conflict (...) potential and underscores that the necessity for sustained basin wide water treaties will increase along with the growing demand for freshwater. The central argument of the essay is that unilateral diversions of water flows will instigate wars between riparian states because of the rising demand for freshwater in the future. (shrink)

This article explores the challenge of developing a feminist law reform proposal to decertify sex and gender based on research conducted for the ‘Future of Legal Gender' project. Locating the proposal to decertify within a do-it-yourself, prefigurative approach to law reform, the article asks: Can a law reform proposal be both instrumental and radical? Can a proposal take shape as a viable legislative text and as a more subversive intervention to unsettle and reimagine gender’s relationship to law? This article explores (...) this at two levels. First, it considers the ontological challenges of developing a controversial law reform proposal in terms of its realness (or fictiveness), contours, and temporality, turning to ‘slow law' as a credible way of approaching radical reform. Second, it explores the design-based challenges of legal prototyping—foregrounding questions of legitimacy, participation, and purpose, which arise in designing a decertification law. At the heart of this discussion is the relationship between representation and enactment—between what a proposal presents and what its presentation does and does not accomplish. (shrink)

In "Pursuits of Wisdom," John Cooper brings this crucial question back to life. This marvelous book will shape the way we think about and engage with ancient philosophical traditions.

Outstanding translations by leading contemporary scholars--many commissioned especially for this volume--are presented here in the first single edition to include the entire surviving corpus of works attributed to Plato in antiquity. In his introductory essay, John Cooper explains the presentation of these works, discusses questions concerning the chronology of their composition, comments on the dialogue form in which Plato wrote, and offers guidance on approaching the reading and study of Plato's works. Also included are concise introductions by Cooper (...) and Hutchinson to each translation, meticulous annotation designed to serve both scholar and general reader, and a comprehensive index. This handsome volume offers fine paper and a high-quality Smyth-sewn cloth binding in a sturdy, elegant edition. (shrink)

The identification and valorization of unacknowledged, feminized forms of economic productivity has been an important task for feminist theory. In this article, we expand and rethink existing definitions of labour, in order to recognize the essential economic role women play in the stem cell and regenerative medicine industries, new fields of biomedical research that are rapidly expanding throughout the world. Women constitute the primary tissue donors in the new stem cell industries, which require high volumes of human embryos, oöcytes, foetal (...) tissue and umbilical cord blood. Such material is generally given for free in the advanced industrial democracies, constituted as a surplus (‘spare’ embryos) or waste (umbilical cord ‘afterbirth’, cadaveric foetuses, poor quality oöcytes) whose generative powers should not be withheld from others. At the same time, among impoverished female populations in developing nations, such biological material is now often procured through frankly transactional relations, where women undertake risky procedures for small fees. In each case, female bodily productivity is mobilized to support bioeconomic research, yet the economic value involved in these relations is largely unacknowledged. In this article, we consider both the gift economy and the transactional economy for reproductive tissues as a form of labour. In order to fully conceptualize the specificities of feminized productivity in the bioeconomy, we distinguish between earlier feminist theories of reproductive labour and the emerging practices generated by stem cell research, which we term regenerative labour. We consider how historical transformations in the regulation of feminized labour and the technical repertoires of stem cell research renegotiate the productivity limits of female reproductive biology, opening it out to novel and profitable forms of surplus value and enrolling women in complex negotiations over their role in bioeconomic activity. (shrink)

I Deliberation, Practical Syllogisms , and Intuition. Introduction Aristotle's views on moral reasoning are a difficult and much disputed subject. ...

The format of this book is unusual, especially for a book about linguistics. The book is meant primarily as a research monograph aimed at linguists who have some background in formal semantics, e. g. Montague Grammar. However, I have two other audiences in mind. Linguists who have little or no experience of formal semantics, but who have worked through a basic mathematics for linguists course (e. g. using Wall, 1972, or Partee, 1978), should, perhaps with the help of a sympathetic (...) Montague gramma rian, be able to discover enough of how I have adapted some of the basic ideas in formal semantics to make the developments that I undertake in the rest of the book accessible. Logicians and computer scientists who know about model theoretic semantics and formal systems should be able to glean enough from Chapters I and II about linguistic concerns and techniques to be able to read the remainder of the book, again possibly with the help of a sympathetic Montague grammarian. However, readers should beware. Chapter II is not meant as a general introduction either to formal semantics or to linguistics and while much of the presentation there is going over ground that is already well covered in the literature, the particular formulation and the emphases are very much oriented to the developments to be undertaken later in the book. (shrink)

Preface This volume represents the proceedings of the First Conference on Situation Theory and Its Applications held by CSLI at Asilomar, California, ...

Andrew Cooper presents the first systematic study of Kant's account of natural history. Cooper contends that Kant made a decisive contribution to one of the most explosive and understudied revolutions in the history of science: the addition of time to the frame in which explanations are required, sought, and justified in natural science. Through addressing a wide range of Kant's works, Cooper challenges the claim that Kant's theory of science denies a developmental conception of nature and argues (...) instead that it establishes a method by which natural historians can genuinely dispute historical claims and potentially come to consensus. This method, Cooper argues, can be used to expose serious flaws in Kant's own historical reasoning, including the formation and defence of his racist views. The book will be valuable to philosophers seeking to discern both the power and limitations of Kant's theory of science, and to historians of science working on the fractured landscape of eighteenth-century Newtonianism. (shrink)

As it is currently understood, the notion of autonomy, both as something that belongs to human beings and human nature, as such, and also as the source or basis of morality , is bound up inextricably with the philosophy of Kant. The term “autonomy” itself derives from classical Greek, where it was applied primarily or even exclusively in a political context, to civic communities possessing independent legislative and self-governing authority. The term was taken up again in Renaissance and early modern (...) times with similar political applications, but was applied also in ecclesiastical disputes about the independence of reformed churches from the former authority in religious matters of the church of the Roman popes. Kant's innovation consisted in conceiving of individual rational persons, as such, as lawgivers or legislators to themselves, and to all rational beings , for their individual modes of behavior. For Kant, rational beings possess a power of legislating for themselves individually, according to which they each set their own personal ends and subject that selection, and their pursuit of the ends in question, to a universal principle, which is expressed in Kant's categorical imperative. The categorical imperative requires that one set one's own ends only within a framework that would warrant acceptance by all other such beings. (shrink)

Our concept of disorder is changing. This causes problems for projects of descriptive conceptual analysis. Conceptual change means that a criterion that was necessary for a condition to be a disorder at one time may cease to be necessary a relatively short time later. Nevertheless, some conceptually based claims will be fairly robust. In particular, the claim that no adequate account of disorder can appeal only to biological facts can be maintained for the foreseeable future. This is because our current (...) concept of disorder continues to be laden with ethical and political values in multiple ways. (shrink)

This engaging volume explores and defends the claim that misanthropy is a justified attitude towards humankind in the light of how human beings both compare with and treat animals. Reflection on differences between humans and animals helps to confirm the misanthropic verdict, while reflection on the moral and other failings manifest in our treatment of animals illuminates what is wrong with this treatment. Human failings, it is argued, are too entrenched to permit optimism about the future of animals, but ways (...) are proposed in which individual people may accommodate to the truth of misanthropy through cultivating mindful, humble and compassionate relationships to animals. Drawing on both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions David E. Cooper offers an original and challenging approach to the complex field of animal ethics. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 13, Issue 1, Page 63-78, January 2021.

In this paper I extend the case for a necessitation account of particular laws in Kant's philosophy of science by examining the relation between reason's hypothetical use in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic and the legitimate hypotheses identified in the Doctrine of Method. Building on normative accounts of reason's ideas, I argue that reason's hypothetical use does not describe the connections between objects and their grounds, which lie beyond the reach of the understanding, but merely prescribes the relations between (...) appearances and their conditions, for which the understanding must seek. A legitimate hypothesis, I suggest, is a proposition we hold to be true that fills in one or several of those relations. The problematic character of hypotheses requires that we evaluate our reasons for holding them to be true. While natural modality is grounded in the nature of things, which cannot be fully known, our reasons for assent can and must be grounded on features of objects that are epistemically available to us. (shrink)

An old Arab proverb runs as follows: He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool; shun him. He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child; teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep; wake him. But he who knows, and knows that he knows, is a sage; follow him.

David E. Cooper; I*—The Presidential Address: Analytical and Continental Philosophy, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 94, Issue 1, 1 June 1994, P.

"Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science" explores conceptual issues in psychiatry from the perspective of analytic philosophy of science. Through an examination of those features of psychiatry that distinguish it from other sciences - for example, its contested subject matter, its particular modes of explanation, its multiple different theoretical frameworks, and its research links with big business - Rachel Cooper explores some of the many conceptual, metaphysical and epistemological issues that arise in psychiatry. She shows how these pose interesting challenges (...) for the philosopher of science while also showing how ideas from the philosophy of science can help to solve conceptual problems within psychiatry. Cooper's discussion ranges over such topics as the nature of mental illnesses, the treatment decisions and diagnostic categories of psychiatry, the case-history as a form of explanation, how psychiatry might be value-laden, the claim that psychiatry is a multi-paradigm science, the distortion of psychiatric research by pharmaceutical industries, as well as engaging with the fundamental question whether the mind is reducible to something at the physical level. "Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science" demonstrates that cross-disciplinary contact between philosophy of science and psychiatry can be immensely productive for both subjects and it will be required reading for mental health professionals and philosophers alike. (shrink)

This paper contributes to inquiries into the genealogy of governmentality and the nature of secularization by arguing that pastoralism continues to operate in the algorithmic register. Drawing on Agamben’s notion of signature, I elucidate a pair of historically distant yet archaeologically proximate affinities: the first between the pastorate and algorithmic control, and the second between the absconded God of late medieval nominalism and the authority of algorithms in the cybernetic age. I support my hypothesis by attending to the signaturial kinships (...) between, on the one hand, temporality and authority in our contemporary conjuncture, and, on the other, obedience and submission in Christian thought from late antiquity and the late Middle Ages. I thereby illustrate the hidden genealogical continuities between theological-pastoral technologies of power and technocratic-algorithmic modalities of governance. I conclude by suggesting that medieval counter-conducts may be redeployed in our present circumstances for emancipatory ends. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently revived the study of the ancient Greek topics of virtue and the virtues—justice, honesty, temperance, friendship, courage, and so on as qualities of mind and character belonging to individual people. But one issue at the center of Greek moral theory seems to have dropped out of consideration. This is the question of the unity of virtue, the unity of the virtues. Must anyone who has one of these qualities have others of them as well, indeed all of (...) them—all the ones that really do deserve to be counted as virtues? Even further, is there really no set of distinct and separate virtuous qualities at all, but at bottom only a single one—so that the person who has this single condition of “virtue” is entitled also to the further descriptions “honest” and “well-controlled” and “just” and “friendly” and “courageous” and “fostering” and “supportive,” and so on, as distinguishable aspects or immediate effects of his unitary “virtue”? (shrink)

This popular book has now been revised to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of the growing number of people interested in all the main philosophical ...

Most studies deny that Kritik der Urteilskraft played a significant role in the early reception of Kant’s philosophy in England. In this paper, I examine the notebooks, letters and lectures of several members of British medical and scientific institutions to tell a different story. Drawing from the writings of Thomas Beddoes, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Joseph Henry Green and William Whewell, I identify a line of reception in which Kant’s critique of judgement’s power of reflection was used to establish the consilience (...) of the mind’s anticipation of systematic order and the organization of natural bodies. Each discovered in Kant’s Kritik der Urteilskraft a shared principle for judgements of taste and scientific inquiry, made available through the mind’s affective response to the appearance of contingent order in nature. Their writings, I contend, evince a more sophisticated reception of Kant’s philosophy in England than has hitherto been recognized. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology claim that function talk is consistent with naturalism. Yet recent work in biology places new pressure on this claim. An increasing number of biologists propose that the existence of functions depends on the organisation of systems. While systems are part of the domain studied by physics, they are capable of interacting with this domain through organising principles. This is to say that a full account of biological function requires teleology. Does naturalism preclude reference to teleological causes? Or (...) are organised systems precisely a naturalised form of teleology? In this paper I suggest that the biology of organised systems reveals several contradictions in the main philosophical conceptions of naturalism. To integrate organised systems with naturalism’s basic assumptions—that there is no theory-independent view for metaphysics, and that nature is intelligible—I propose an idealist solution. (shrink)