Rama, Tiago (2025) Function and Selection Beyond Externalism Addressing the impact of explanatory internalism in the selected-effect theory. [Preprint]

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Abstract

In evolutionary theory, Explanatory Externalism—one of the pillars of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis—holds that natural selection is the sole adaptive force driving evolution. This paper highlights several challenges to Explanatory Externalism, primarily advanced by developmental biology and its various subfields and theories. Based on this debate, I examine the implications for one of the most established accounts of biological function: the selected-effect theory. While externalist readings of selected-effect theory are common, I argue a conditional claim: if and when SE is interpreted within an externalist framework, two central desiderata remain unresolved—the explanatory and the discriminatory desiderata. Internalist explanations are indispensable in evolutionary biology for two reasons. First, in connection with the explanatory desideratum, internalist explanations are necessary to account for the existence of traits—not only at their origin but also in their transgenerational persistence. Second, concerning the discriminatory desideratum, an internalist framework shows that traits may exist in nature without being either selected or accidental, arising instead from structural properties and constraints that render them necessary conditions for the organism’s existence. Due to the limits of an externalist SE, I propose a possible alternative in which selected functions are reconceptualized from an internalist perspective. Although this framework remains underdeveloped, key ideas can be outlined through the Agential Paradigm in biology. In this view, an organism’s capacity to regulate its environmental interactions generates specific trait functions, which in turn determine selection conditions across generations. Rather than treating selection as an external force imposing order on randomness, trait function itself drives selection—no selection without function. Selected functions are thus linked to the adaptive origins of traits and their persistence across phylogeny. From this agential perspective, developmental processes generate specific functions, which in turn cause the selection of traits. This article, consequently, offers an appraisal of selected-effect functions grounded in a reconceptualization of selection within the Agential Paradigm.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Rama, Tiago trama.folco@gmail.com 0000-0002-1531-7233
Keywords:	Explanatory Externalism; Explanatory Internalism; Selected-Effect Functions; Natural Selection; Agential Paradigm.
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory Specific Sciences > Biology > Function/Teleology General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Dr. Tiago Rama
Date Deposited:	16 Jan 2026 13:35
Last Modified:	16 Jan 2026 13:35
Item ID:	27915
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory Specific Sciences > Biology > Function/Teleology General Issues > Explanation
Date:	December 2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27915

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