Elster did not oppose the use of functional explanation in principle but rather argued that, to be legitimate, it had to be underpinned by more conventional causal or intentional modes of explanation.
Notice the centrality of reasons in all these modes of explanation.
This tension lies beneath recent philosophical critiques of evolutionary theory and its modes of explanation.
There is a long-standing distinction in Western thought between scientific and historical modes of explanation.
More recently, Jaegwon Kim [1989] has revived this issue in a more general way, seeing the two modes of explanation as joint instances of a Principle of Explanatory Exclusion.
One of Schopenhauer's most significant assertions is that the four different modes of explanation only run in parallel with each other, and cannot coherently be intermixed.
In developing this point, Hoffmann argues that there are two modes of explanation that can be directed at chemical systems: horizontal and vertical (Hoffmann, 1997).
The basic Kantian insight was further ramified by Lotze: mechanism and teleology are coexisting, compatible modes of explanation, each with their own proper sphere, and not contradictory opposites: "[b]oth … are limited, and both imply one another.
It would have been difficult for our ancestors, in the face of a perplexing and complex world, to resist applying one of the few systematic, and highly successful, modes of explanation in their possession.
Many contemporary debates have historical analogues, reflecting long-standing controversies among biologists about the legitimacy of reductionist research strategies and modes of explanation used by different life science subdisciplines.
