Where is aristotles function argument

Metadata Show full item record. Citation Korsgaard, Christine M. Aristotle's function argument. In The Constitution of Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Abstract In Nicomachean Ethics 1. He argues that the human function is rational activity. Keywords: action , Aristotle , choice , form , function , happiness , good , purpose , rational , virtue. Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service.

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University Press Scholarship Online. Sign in. Not registered? Sign up. This might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the function of man. He proposes that if we could determine the human function, then we could work out from that what human happiness is.

This follows from the fact that happiness is our chief good, and the goodness of a thing resides in its function. One way to think about function is in terms of why a thing does what it does, its purpose or use. This is probably what we think of first when reading Aristotle these days, particularly when he goes on to name occupations as examples of things with functions, to which we might be tempted to add examples of tools or instruments.

A second way of thinking about function is in terms of how a thing does what it does, its mechanisms. Consider, for example, a complicated machine. Such a thing might have many purposes, but in [this second sense] it has only one function — one way of functioning.

For instance, a computer serves a great variety of purposes, things as different as word processing, solving mathematical problems, writing music and playing chess. But to describe its function, in [this] sense, is to describe what we might call its functional construction, the mechanisms that enable it to do all these things.

Superficially, we might say that its function is the electronic storage and retrieval of information according to a program, or some such thing. But in the strict sense, only someone who actually understands how computers work can tell you what their function is.

A third way to think about function is in terms of what a thing does. In this case we are not interested in merely the mechanisms by which a thing acts as in the second way , but the usage of those mechanisms in an activity.

Accordingly, for this third way we pick out a particular activity performed by something, which we call its characteristic activity or proper act, and which we can think about as follows: the characteristic activity of an X is the activity it necessarily engages in insofar as it is an X.

Someone may be a sculptor, a violinist, and a father, and so without any qualification we could say that he has three characteristic activities. But if we qualify our consideration of him to one of these things, then there will only be one corresponding function. So, if we consider him insofar as he is a sculptor, then he will have the characteristic activity we described above. This third way of thinking about function seems to fit best with how Aristotle speaks about it.

Now, we have previously offered the following analysis of activities:. The end for which the activity is done determines how and when those powers are to be used, which is what we refer to as their measured exercise. Thus, we can distinguish between three things: the activity, its end, and its powers.

This applies to activities in general, so it is worth thinking about what qualifications need to be added to make it into an analysis of characteristic activities. Since the ends of characteristic activities can be as varied as the ends of activities in general, and since measures will vary accordingly, it seems the best approach is to start with the powers.

They will be the powers used in the course of the relevant function considered at the generality at which they are used. For example, both a sculptor and a pianist use the movement of their hands when engaging in their respective functions, but the powers relevant to sculpting are things like the power to mold clay, chisel stone, hammer with the appropriate delicacy, and so on, while the powers relevant to piano-playing are things like quick finger movement, timing, applying different amounts of pressure for different volumes, and so on.

In some sense it is clear that there is, since no matter what a human does, they must of necessity engage in the activity of human life. But Aristotle gestures toward a pair of arguments for this conclusion in addition to whatever intuitions we may have about it.

Have the carpenter, then, and the tanner certain functions or activities, and has man none? Is he born without a function?

Or as eye, hand, foot, and in general each of the parts evidently has a function, may one lay it down that man similarly has a function apart from all these? But, if he is gesturing towards arguments, then one way to reconstruct them is in terms of unity. While the occupations humans engage in might differ from one another in various ways, there is nevertheless unity between them insofar as they all involve the same fundamental actions, like deliberation, communication, bodily movement, sensation, learning, and so on.

While these actions may be expressed in different ways and to different degrees, their pervasiveness points to a deeper activity that underlies all human occupations.

And this is evident also in the fact that someone who is a carpenter could equally have been a tanner had they desired, or could switch from being a carpenter to being a tanner, or could even have both occupations simultaneously. The possibility of someone switching between or having multiple occupations while remaining the same human suggests that there is some activity that underlies them.

And since this could in principle happen between any pair of occupations, this underlying activity must be broad enough to encompass anything a human might do, which must surely be the human function.