Roffé, Alleva, Ginnobili and Barberis, The Open Texture of Functions: A Framework for Analyzing Functional Concepts in Molecular Biology.
Roffé, Ariel Jonathan; Alleva, Karina; Ginnobili, Santiago, and Barberis, Sergio Daniel (2024) The Open Texture of Functions: A Framework for Analyzing Functional Concepts in Molecular Biology. Synthese 204 , 159 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-024-04821-7 . Preprint . Abstract In recent times, the exponential growth of sequenced genomes and structural knowledge of proteins, as well as the development of computational tools and controlled vocabularies to deal with this growth, has fueled a demand for conceptual clarification regarding the concept of function in molecular biology. In this article, we will attempt to develop an account of function fit to deal with the conceptual/philosophical problems in that domain, but which can be extended to other areas of biology. To provide this account, we will argue for three theses: (1) some authors have confused metatheoretical issues (about the meaning and application criteria of terms) wit...