Functional Powers

This chapter introduces functional powers, i.e. causal powers that play the role of functions. The first section characterizes functions and present some desiderata for a good theory of functions. The second section makes some assumptions about the ontology of powers, teleology and structures—that will be helpful in order to ground the present account of functional powers. In the third section, sixteen different types of functional powers are examined. All such types of functional powers will exhaustively contribute to performing all the ontological and explanatory tasks that may be attributed to functions. Finally, in the fourth section, it is shown how this account of functions as functional powers satisfies all the desiderata presented at the outset.