There are at least two assumptions which, except for very few occasions, have not been discussed by philosophers who have written on the metaphysics of technological objects. The first assumption is that to be a technology is an absolute matter and that all technological objects are equally technological. The second assumption is that the property of being technological is abstracted from existing things which happen to have this property in common. I appeal to the definition of technological objects as problem-solving (...) physical instruments to show that things can be technological to different degrees, and that the property of being technological is more fundamental than being a technology. (shrink)

Social scientific and humanistic research on synthetic biology has focused quite narrowly on questions of epistemology and ELSI. I suggest that to understand this discipline in its full scope, researchers must turn to the objects of the field—synthetic biological artifacts—and study them as the objects in the making of a science yet to be made. I consider one fundamentally important question: how should we understand the material products of synthetic biology? Practitioners in the field, employing a consistent technological optic in (...) the study and construction of biological systems, routinely employ the mantra ‘biology is technology’. I explore this categorization. By employing an established definition of technological artifects drawn from the philosophy of technology, I explore the appropriateness of attributing to synthetic biological artifacts the four criteria of materiality, intentional design, functionality, and normativity. I then explore a variety of accounts of natural kinds. I demonstrate that synthetic biological artifacts fit each kind imperfectly, and display a concomitant ontological ‘messiness’. I argue that this classificatory ambivalence is a product of the field’s own nascence, and posit that further work on kinds might help synthetic biology evaluate its existing commitments and practices. (shrink)

Many things that humans put together humans also put to use. Among these are certain forms of knowledge. Science studies and the sociology of knowledge have contributed great insight into scientist...

Philosophers of biology have developed an extensive literature on biological functions. Here I propose a treatment of the topic based in social studies of science. I posit that the chief philosophical accounts of biological functions all rest upon a realist ontology of biological functions, one that conceives functions as human-independent qualities of things. Rather than being conceptualised as a property of traits or structures, function should be understood as a status granted by communities acting in accordance with specific domains of (...) knowledge and practice. Function becomes not a property of things, but a collective good: not of things, but by communities. I survey the existing explanations of biological functions from the philosophical literature and identify what I take to be those accounts’ shared complications. I then employ Martin Kusch’s communitarian epistemology as a point of departure for a sociological conception of function and develop an explanation of function that rests on an understan.. (shrink)

El artículo presenta las bondades y deficiencias de los tres enfoques predominantes en las teorías ontológicas de los artefactos técnicos, que son los enfoques: (1) funcional, (2) intencional y (3) dual. Mostraré que no es conveniente enfocarnos únicamente en las «funciones» o «intenciones» para formular una teoría general sobre los artefactos, sino en un enfoque «dual» que no deje por fuera los elementos materiales y estructurales, pero que tenga coherencia con los elementos simbólicos y contextuales en los que estamos sumergidos (...) los seres humanos. (shrink)

This paper systematically compares two frameworks for analysing technical artefacts: the Dual-Nature approach, exemplified by the contributions to Kroes and Meijers , and the collectivist approach advocated by Schyfter , following Kusch . After describing the main tenets of both approaches, we show that there is significant overlap between them: both frameworks analyse the most typical cases of artefact use, albeit in different terms, but to largely the same extent. Then, we describe several kinds of cases for which the frameworks (...) yield different analyses. For these cases, which include one-of-a-kind artefacts and defect types, the Dual-Nature framework leads to a more attractive analysis. Our comparison also gives us the opportunity to respond to Vaesen’s critical paper. We do so by distinguishing two readings of the Dual-Nature framework and pointing out that on the sustainable, weaker reading, Vaesen’s considerations supplement the framework rather than offering an alternative to it.Keywords: Technical artefact; Dual Nature framework; Collectivist framework; Artefact use. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend a theory of artifacts based on the concept of field of action, as an alternative to functional, intentional and double-nature theories. The proposed theory is realistic about the existence of entities that are artifacts, and praxiological about the nature of such entities. The basis of the theory is the concept of action; from this concept, the concepts of field of action and participants in a field of action, namely, agents and objects, are (...) introduced. An artifact is defined as an object that has a part and role in the achievement of an action. (shrink)

This paper aims to defend a theory of artifacts based on the concept of field of action as an alternative to functionalist, intentionalist, and double-nature theories. The proposed theory is realist about the existence of entities that are artifacts and praxiological about the nature of such entities. The basis for the theory is the concept of action. The concepts of field of action and of participants in a field of action, such as agents, supports and objects, are introduced by abstraction (...) over actions. An artifact is an object that has a part and a role in performing an action. (shrink)

My starting point is that discussions in philosophy about the ontology of technical artifacts ought to be informed by classificatory practices in engineering. Hence, the heuristic value of the natural-artificial distinction in engineering counts against arguments which favour abandoning the distinction in metaphysics. In this chapter, I present the philosophical equipment needed to analyse classificatory practices and then present a case study of engineering practice using these theoretical tools. More in particular, I make use of the Collectivist Account of Technical (...) Artifacts (CAT) according to which there are different classificatory practices for natural, artificial, and social objects. I demonstrate that in the community studied, artificial kinds are marked by distinctive classificatory practices. The presence of these distinctive classificatory practices in engineering with regard to artificial kinds should inform discussions about the ontology of technical artifacts just as the distinctive classificatory practices in natural science inform discussions about natural kinds. (shrink)