Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and contemporary mechanistic philosophy facing the problem of the ontological status of functions

Abstract

This paper attempts to address the ontological status of functions, also called organizational (Craver) or formal properties (Merleau-Ponty), of organic processes, in order to state that Merleau-Ponty’s category of form could be considered in agreement with respect to Craver’s mechanistic stance, inasmuch as Craver recognizes an “active organization” in mechanisms and highlights the importance of functional descriptions. It is argued that or­ganizational properties: a) are not reducible to its component parts; b) they cannot always be explained in evolutionary terms; and c) they are not mere heuristic resources. It is concluded that such properties belong to the organism as a whole, insofar as it is presented to a cogni­tive system in certain concrete conditions. In developing this hypothesis, we specially focus on its consequences regarding the project of naturalizing phenomenology (first part), and the possibilities of achieving what contemporary mechanistic philosophy calls “actual mecha­nism” of explanation (second part).