Functional Analysis and the Meaning of Life
I hope in this paper to clarify, and partially resolve, the conflict between science and religion. The claims over which scientific and various religious worldviews can conflict can be usefully divided into two sorts: claims regarding value and purpose, and claims regarding ontology. The resolution I hope to effect is achieved by defending an account that analyzes moral value and purpose in terms of functions. Philosophers seeking to reconcile values and facts, or morality and science, have frequently employed functions, but accounts of human functioning are notoriously problematic. The aforementioned resolution and clarification follows from an improved concept of function, from which it follows that questions of ethical value and purpose can be “ontologized,” but can be naturalized only if a naturalistic ontology can also be defended. Thus, once the issue of moral value and purpose is out of the way, we see that all true conflict between science and religion is ontological, and that it is rational for individuals to differ over the meaning of life only when they also disagree about ontology.
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Joel Press has been an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at California University of Pennsylvania since Fall 2006. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Arizona, and an M.A. in Philosophy and B.A. in English Literature from Arizona State University. His primary research interests include the Philosophy of Science (especially the Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Science) and the Philosophy of Mind. His research has been published in the journals Synthese and Biology and Philosophy. When not engaged in philosophy (and, for that matter, even when so engaged) he enjoys hiking in the mountains, deserts, and canyons of his native Arizona. And as a native of Arizona, he is glad to be attending a conference located near properly prepared Mexican food.
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