This paper points out the need for an analytical and ontological reorientation of the field of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). It is argued that even though this field is heterogeneous it is marred by general problems of conceptualising the co-constitutive relations between humans and technologies. This is demonstrated through readings of several recent CSCW analyses. It is then suggested that a conceptual improvement can be facilitated by paying attention to newer scientific studies, here exemplified by Pickering, Haraway and (...) Latour. (shrink)

The past decade has seen the development of a perspective holding that technology is socially constructed. This paper examines the social construction of one group of technologies: systems for computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). It describes the design of CSCW in Japan, with particular attention to the influence of culture on the design process. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the argument that culture is an important factor in technology design, despite commonly held assumptions about (...) the neutrality and objectivity of science and technology. The paper further argues that, by looking at CSCW systems as texts which reflect the context of their production and the society from which they come, we may be better able to understand the transformations that operate when these texts are ‘read’ in the contexts of their implementation. (shrink)

platform, whose design concepts are described. Furthermore, a concrete example for the application of the approach to the design of a tailorable distributed coordination tool is given. We discuss related work, summarise the current state of the component-based tailorability approach and propose venues of further research.

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

waC provides a variety of different graphical notification mechanisms which can be coupled to specific working situations using the AREA model. We also report on the evaluation of the system under real-life conditions in a German federal ministry.

We explore the relationship between ethnomethodology (EM), ethnography and the needs of managers and designers in industry, considering both ethnomethodological and industrial criteria of adequacy and explicating their relationship through the concept of “audience.” We examine a range of studies in this light, with a view to their possible candidacy as hybrid studies and identify three types of application of EM studies of work: market research, design, and business improvement. Application in the first of these fields we dub “anthropological,” (...) in that it consists in studying and reporting back on the ways of exotic people (customers). This is the application most commonly found in studies of computer supported co-operative work (CSCW). A second CSCW application, “technomethodology,” involves the introduction of EM concepts into the design process. A further application, dubbed “holding-up-a-mirror,” involves reporting back to members of a setting upon their own activities. We argue that technomethodology and holding-up-a-mirror both offer the possibility of creating hybrid disciplines. We consider the objection that improvement and design involve the introduction of value judgements that threaten the practice of EM indifference, arguing that action research can serve as a guarantee of unique adequacy (UA) by testing the researcher’s understanding as analysis in action in the setting. Furthermore, the standard of reporting required by the UA criterion contributes to the effectiveness of proposed solutions. (shrink)

The paper presents a general critique of the use of conceptual frameworks in design, illustrated by the well known synchronous/asynchronous, co-located/non-co-located framework. It argues that while frameworks are a necessary and inevitable starting point for design, the business of tailoring and adapting them to specific situations need not be ad hoc.Triggering artefacts are a way of systematically challenging both designers' preunderstandings and the conservatism of work practice. Experiences from the Great Belt tunnel and bridge project are used to (...) illustrate howtriggering artefacts change themodality of designing for change. (shrink)

Four criteria are discussed as important conditions of successful applications in Computer Supported Co-operative Work (CSCW). They are equality, mutual influence, new competence, and double-level language. The criteria originate in the experience of the International Co-operative Movement. They are examined and illustrated withreference to eight contemporary CSCW applications: meeting scheduling and support; bargaining; co-authoring; co-ordination; planning; design support and collaborative design.

This paper presents a platform for developing, testing and executing synchronous collaborative applications in a distributed, heterogeneous environment. Even though several environments exist nowadays, specific problems are not treated satisfactorily. Especially in ‘real’ network environments, problems like unstable network connections and low bandwidths have to be considered.The DreamTeam platform addresses the special needs of environments with non-optimal characteristics which can, be found in distance learning scenarios. DreamTeam comprises a development environment, a simulation environment and a runtime environment; it is based (...) upon the concept of a fully decentralised architecture and encourages rapid prototyping.DreamTeam supports developers of shared applications through a component concept. Using components helps to divide a software project into well-defined parts. Well-documented interfaces help to reduce integration efforts and improve software quality. A selection of sample applications with DreamTeam validates our design concept. (shrink)

Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is faced with issues which are crucial to Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). However, despite the large amount of work on Enterprise Integration and its obvious links to the CSCW field, this domain is almost totally absent in the work of the CSCW community. Therefore, this paper is intended to contribute to the discussion on the relevance of CSCW in manufacturing and to combine new concepts for cooperative work with requirements for information (...) system design in production. Production related models, e.g., an order-driven mode of coordination, can be augmented with mechanisms of interaction for coordination, collaboration and co-decision and the design of customer/supplier chains. It is suggested, as one example, to use workflow management technology in advanced manufacturing for shop-floor production planning and control (PPC). The proposed enterprise model and support technology is especially useful for small-batch production. (shrink)

Two areas of importance for agents and multiagent systems are investigated: design of agent programming languages, and design of agent communication languages. The paper contributes in the above mentioned areas by demonstrating improved or novel applications for deontic logic and normative reasoning. Examples are taken from computer-supported cooperative work, and electronic commerce.

Being present in the same room not only enables people to exchange non-verbal communication but also the physical properties of the room offer opportunities for action and thus contribute to the ongoing social process. This paper discusses concepts from social and behavioural sciences to better understand the role of physical environments and artefacts with respect to cooperation among a group of people. Barker's behaviour setting theory is studied and applied to electronic settings. Requirements for ‘electronic behaviour settings’ to enable situated (...) cooperation in CSCW across spatial and temporal distances will be derived. Electronic behaviour settings should embody their own physical behaviour, and thus provide electronic places for cooperation. Adaptation to a particular group process can be achieved through a particular constitution of the setting and its adaptation in the course of practical use. This paper studies how this concept maps to existing groupware systems and outlines from practical experience whether this concept may help users adopt groupware in their work practice. This approach will contribute to the support of situated action in computer-supported cooperative work. (shrink)

Emerging technologies such as cloud computing, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence and robotics, among others, are transforming the field of manufacturing and industry as a whole in unprecedent ways. This fourth industrial revolution is consequentially changing how operators that have been crucial to industry success go about their practices in industrial environments. This short paper briefly introduces the notion of the Operator 4.0 as well as how this novel way of conceptualizing the human operator necessarily implicates human values in (...) the technologies that constitute it. Similarly, the design methodology known as value sensitive design (VSD) is drawn upon to discuss how these Operator 4.0 technologies can be design for human values and, conversely, how a potential value-sensitive Operator 4.0 can be used to strengthen the VSD methodology in developing novel technologies. (shrink)

Applications of artificial intelligence/machine learning in health care are dynamic and rapidly growing. One strategy for anticipating and addressing ethical challenges related to AI/ml for health care is patient and public involvement in the design of those technologies – often referred to as ‘co-design’. Co-design has a diverse intellectual and practical history, however, and has been conceptualized in many different ways. Moreover, AI/ml introduces challenges to co-design that are often underappreciated. Informed by perspectives from critical data (...) studies and critical digital health studies, we review the research literature on involvement in health care, and involvement in design, and examine the extent to which co-design as commonly conceptualized is capable of addressing the range of normative issues raised by AI/ml for health care. We suggest that AI/ml technologies have amplified and modified existing challenges related to patient and public involvement, and created entirely new challenges. We outline three pitfalls associated with co-design for ethical AI/ml for health care and conclude with suggestions for addressing these practical and conceptual challenges. (shrink)

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is an established method for integrating values into technical design. It has been applied to different technologies and, more recently, to artificial intelligence (AI). We argue that AI poses a number of challenges specific to VSD that require a somewhat modified VSD approach. Machine learning (ML), in particular, poses two challenges. First, humans may not understand how an AI system learns certain things. This requires paying attention to values such as transparency, explicability, and accountability. (...) Second, ML may lead to AI systems adapting in ways that ‘disembody’ the values embedded in them. To address this, we propose a threefold modified VSD approach: 1) integrating a known set of VSD principles (AI4SG) as design norms from which more specific design requirements can be derived; 2) distinguishing between values that are promoted and respected by the design to ensure outcomes that not only do no harm but also contribute to good; and 3) extending the VSD process to encompass the whole life cycle of an AI technology in order to monitor unintended value consequences and redesign as needed. We illustrate our VSD for AI approach with an example use case of a SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing app. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers have largely neglected Richard Taylor’s design argument. Given that the initial responses to the argument were largely negative, one might be tempted to conclude that the argument is simply philosophically inadequate. This paper rejects that conclusion by showing how Taylor’s argument has been misunderstood by his critics. In defending Taylor, it is shown that the two types of objections levied against him fail to even blemish his design argument, let alone refute it. Consideration is also given (...) to the argument’s historical lineage, along with a proposal for future considerations of the connection between epistemological realism and design. (shrink)

In light of the fact that social dynamics and unexpected uses of technology can inspire innovation, this book proposes a research model of design for emergence, ...

Sections include: experiments and generalised causal inference; statistical conclusion validity and internal validity; construct validity and external validity; quasi-experimental designs that either lack a control group or lack pretest observations on the outcome; quasi-experimental designs that use both control groups and pretests; quasi-experiments: interrupted time-series designs; regresssion discontinuity designs; randomised experiments: rationale, designs, and conditions conducive to doing them; practical problems 1: ethics, participation recruitment and random assignment; practical problems 2: treatment implementation and attrition; generalised causal inference: a grounded theory; (...) generalised causal inference: methods for single studies; generalised causal inference: methods for multiple studies; a critical assessment of our assumptions. (shrink)

Design for Values (DfV) philosophies are a series of design approaches that aim to incorporate human values into the early phases of technological design to direct innovation into beneficial outcomes. The difficulty and necessity of directing advantageous futures for transformative technologies through the application and adoption of value-based design approaches are apparent. However, questions of whose values to design are of critical importance. DfV philosophies typically aim to enrol the stakeholders who may be affected by (...) the emergence of such a technology. However, regardless of which design approach is adopted, all enrolled stakeholders are human ones who propose human values. Contemporary scholarship on metahumanisms, particularly those on posthumanism, have decentred the human from its traditionally privileged position among other forms of life. Arguments that the humanist position is not (and has never been) tenable are persuasive. As such, scholarship has begun to provide a more encompassing ontology for the investigation of nonhuman values. Given the potentially transformative nature of future technologies as relates to the earth and its many assemblages, it is clear that the value investigations of these design approaches fail to account for all relevant stakeholders (i.e., nonhuman animals). This paper has two primary objectives: (1) to argue for the cogency of a posthuman ethics in the design of technologies; and (2) to describe how existing DfV approaches can begin to envision principled and methodological ways of incorporating non-human values into design. To do this, the paper provides a rudimentary outline of what constitutes DfV approaches. It then takes up a unique design approach called Value Sensitive Design (VSD) as an illustrative example. Out of all the other DfV frameworks, VSD most clearly illustrates a principled approach to the integration of values in design. (shrink)

In the presented article, I consider what the process of designing the future can be. In detail, I am interested in what role touch plays in this process, combined with the practice of speculative imagination. In order to better understand this phenomenon, I use the transdisciplinary model of knowledge production, whose specific feature is the crossing and blurring of boundaries between fields of knowledge. The goal of this activity is to produce new forms of knowledge by combining methods and cognitive (...) tools derived from science, art, humanities, and crafts. In such a context, I am interested in how discursive practices and body practices are complementary. As a research perspective, I adopt the currents of posthumanism and new materialism oriented toward the analysis of human and nonhuman expressions of agency and processes of self-organization of matter. The starting point for the considerations presented here is a critical analysis of the vision of the future in the form of the absence of any future inscribed in the concept of the Anthropocene. Referring to the considerations of feminist thinkers such as Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, and Karen Barad, I analyze what the future, understood as the commonality of the human and nonhuman, in the perspective of planetary changes, can be. (shrink)

We present a preliminary high-level formal theory, grounded on knowledge representation techniques and foundational ontologies, for the uniform and integrated representation of the different kinds of (quali- tative and quantitative) knowledge involved in the designing process. We discuss the conceptual nature of engineering design by individuating and analyzing the involved notions. These notions are then formally charac- terized by extending the DOLCE foundational ontology. Our ultimate purpose is twofold: (i) to contribute to foundational issues of design; and (ii) (...) to support the development of advanced modelling systems for (qualitative and quantitative) representation of design knowledge. (shrink)

Healthcare is becoming increasingly automated with the development and deployment of care robots. There are many benefits to care robots but they also pose many challenging ethical issues. This paper takes care robots for the elderly as the subject of analysis, building on previous literature in the domain of the ethics and design of care robots. Using the value sensitive design approach to technology design, this paper extends its application to care robots by integrating the values of (...) care, values that are specific to AI, and higher-scale values such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The ethical issues specific to care robots for the elderly are discussed at length alongside examples of specific design requirements that work to ameliorate these ethical concerns. (shrink)

During the past decade, the “script” concept, indicating how technologies prescribe human actions, has acquired a central place in STS. Until now, the concept has mainly functioned in descriptive settings. This article will deploy it in a normative setting. When technologies coshape human actions, they give material answers to the ethical question of how to act. This implies that engineers are doing “ethics by other means”: they materialize morality. The article will explore the implications of this insight for engineering ethics. (...) It first augments the script concept by developing the notion of technological mediation. After this, it investigates how the concept of mediation could be made fruitful for design ethics. It discusses how the ambition to design behaviorinfluencing technologies raises moral questions itself and elaborates two methods for anticipating technological mediation in the design process: performing mediation analyses and using an augmented version of constructive technology assessment. (shrink)

This Element analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take, but the main focus is on two such arguments. The first concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. Creationists who advance this argument contend that evolution by natural selection cannot be the right explanation. The second design argument - the argument from fine-tuning - begins with the fact that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the (...) laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values. Since probability is the main analytical tool used, the book provides a primer on probability theory. (shrink)

In this paper I critically evaluate the value neutrality thesis regarding technology, and find it wanting. I then introduce the various ways in which artifacts can come to influence moral value, and our evaluation of moral situations and actions. Here, following van de Poel and Kroes, I introduce the idea of value sensitive design. Specifically, I show how by virtue of their designed properties, artifacts may come to embody values. Such accounts, however, have several shortcomings. In agreement with Michael (...) Klenk, I raise epistemic and metaphysical issues with respect to designed properties embodying value. The concept of an affordance, borrowed from ecological psychology, provides a more philosophically fruitful grounding to the potential way(s) in which artifacts might embody values. This is due to the way in which it incorporates key insights from perception more generally, and how we go about determining possibilities for action in our environment specifically. The affordance account as it is presented by Klenk, however, is insufficient. I therefore argue that we understand affordances based on whether they are meaningful, and, secondly, that we grade them based on their force. (shrink)

We consider the potential impact of Computer Supported Cooperative Work, with special reference to large technically advanced projects involving several organizations. It is vital that such projects are managed efficiently, without delays, since a product that reaches the market a few months earlier than its competitors enjoys a great advantage. Traditional methods of coordinating large projects, based on hierarchical communication, tend to produce delays, since technicians at remote sites are obliged to solve coordination problems by passing them up the hierachy. (...) It would be better if such problems were solved by improvising conferences among the technicians; Computer Supported Cooperative Work will provide the technical means of implementing this heterarchical style of management without losing control of the project. The use of computers as a social medium raises methodological and ethical issues which are discussed in the final section. (shrink)

The diversity of knowledge surrounding behavioural insights (BI) means in the policy sciences, although visible, remains under-theorized with scant comparative and generalizable explorations of the procedural prerequisites for their effective design, both as stand-alone tools and as part of dedicated policy 'toolkits'. While comparative analyses of the content of BI tools has proliferated, the knowledge gap about the procedural needs of BI policy design is growing recognizably, as the range of BI responses grows in practice necessitating specific capabilities, (...) processes and institutional frameworks to be in place for their design. This Element draws on the literature on policy design and innovation adoption to explore the administrative, institutional and capacity endowments of governments for the successful and appropriate integration of BI in existing policy frameworks. Further, we present three illustrative cases with respect to their experience of essential procedural endowments facilitating for the effective integration of BI in policy design. (shrink)

Research design is fundamentally central to all scientific endeavors, at all levels and in all institutional settings. This book is a practical, short, simple, and authoritative examination of the concepts and issues in interpretive research design, looking across this approach's methods of generating and analyzing data. It is meant to set the stage for the more "how-to" volumes that will come later in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods, which will look at specific methods and the designs that (...) they require. It will, however, engage some very practical issues, such as ethical considerations and the structure of research proposals. Interpretive research design requires a high degree of flexibility, where the researcher is more likely to think of "hunches" to follow than formal hypotheses to test. Yanow and Schwartz-Shea address what research design is and why it is important, what interpretive research is and how it differs from quantitative and qualitative research in the positivist traditions, how to design interpretive research, and the sections of a research proposal and report. (shrink)

This chapter discusses a problematic relation between user-friendly design and manipulation. Some specific features of the design of a website can make it a more or less potent tool for manipulation. In particular, features that can be summed up as creating a user-friendly experience are also manipulation-friendly. The ease of using a website also makes it easier to be manipulated via the website. The chapter provides an argument that this can be explained as a less intellectually virtuous engagement (...) with websites that are more user-friendly. It is simply more difficult to mobilize suitable intellectual virtues when the website is quick and easy to use. For instance, when Google Search presents search results quickly and easily users become less intellectually cautious and independent than they ought to be. The chapter discusses a mechanism that links user-friendly design to an overly trusting attitude towards a website that leads to this intellectually careless behaviour. This link is support with empirical evidence based on processing fluency effects. (shrink)

Adorning the Country with Ruins -- The Western Baroque Landscape -- The Irish Tours -- Designing Picturesque Ireland -- Epilogue: Studies in a Point of View.

The prospective robots in healthcare intended to be included within the conclave of the nurse-patient relationship—what I refer to as care robots—require rigorous ethical reflection to ensure their design and introduction do not impede the promotion of values and the dignity of patients at such a vulnerable and sensitive time in their lives. The ethical evaluation of care robots requires insight into the values at stake in the healthcare tradition. What’s more, given the stage of their development and lack (...) of standards provided by the International Organization for Standardization to guide their development, ethics ought to be included into the design process of such robots. The manner in which this may be accomplished, as presented here, uses the blueprint of the Value-sensitive design approach as a means for creating a framework tailored to care contexts. Using care values as the foundational values to be integrated into a technology and using the elements in care, from the care ethics perspective, as the normative criteria, the resulting approach may be referred to as care centered value-sensitive design. The framework proposed here allows for the ethical evaluation of care robots both retrospectively and prospectively. By evaluating care robots in this way, we may ultimately ask what kind of care we, as a society, want to provide in the future. (shrink)

Design thinking in general, and optimality modeling in particular, have traditionally been associated with adaptationism—a research agenda that gives pride of place to natural selection in shaping biological characters. Our goal is to evaluate the role of design thinking in non-evolutionary analyses. Specifically, we focus on research into abstract design principles that underpin the functional organization of extant organisms. Drawing on case studies from engineering-inspired approaches in biology we show how optimality analysis, and other design-related methods, (...) play a specific methodological role that is tangential to the study of adaptation. To account for the role of these reasoning strategies in contemporary biology, we therefore suggest a reevaluation of the connection between design thinking and adaptationism. (shrink)

One of the primary, if not most critical, difficulties in the design and implementation of autonomous systems is the black-boxed nature of the decision-making structures and logical pathways. How human values are embodied and actualised in situ may ultimately prove to be harmful if not outright recalcitrant. For this reason, the values of stakeholders become of particular significance given the risks posed by opaque structures of intelligent agents (IAs). This paper explores how decision matrix algorithms, via the belief-desire-intention model (...) for autonomous vehicles, can be designed to minimize the risks of opaque architectures. Primarily through an explicit orientation towards designing for the values of explainability and verifiability. In doing so, this research adopts the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) approach as a principled framework for the incorporation of such values within design. VSD is recognized as a potential starting point that offers a systematic way for engineering teams to formally incorporate existing technical solutions within ethical design, while simultaneously remaining pliable to emerging issues and needs. It is concluded that the VSD methodology offers at least a strong enough foundation from which designers can begin to anticipate design needs and formulate salient design flows that can be adapted to the changing ethical landscapes required for utilisation in autonomous vehicles. (shrink)

This paper describes the Electronic Schoolbag, a digital workspace developed at the University of Savoie (France) and analyses its usages. This online environment is dedicated to the educational world: it offers pupils, students, teachers, school staff, or parents, personal and group workspaces in which individual or collaborative activities can take place. The flexibility of this software, allowing synchronous or asynchronous activities, lies in the “participation model”. This model allows groups themselves to describe and organise their activities. The architecture that permits (...) its implementation in the Electronic Schoolbag workspace is described. The study of the practices of the workspace is then presented. This requires different observation methods, according to the different procedures chosen: real practices provided by quantitative methods (analysis of the logs of the actions and questionnaires) and imagined practices provided by qualitative methods (semi-directive interviews). The results obtained from the university users allow us to assess the evolution of the usages for different periods and on different university sites. The observatory also lets us list the main uses of the Electronic Schoolbag for educative communication (collaborative vs. individual, informative vs. communicative). (shrink)

This essay proposes a design perspective on argumentation, intended as complementary to empirical and critical scholarship. In any substantive domain, design can provide insights that differ from those provided by scientific or humanistic perspectives. For argumentation, the key advantage of a design perspective is the recognition that humanity’s natural capacity for reason and reasonableness can be extended through inventions that improve on unaided human intellect. Historically, these inventions have fallen into three broad classes: logical systems, scientific methods, (...) and disputation frameworks. Behind each such invention is a specifiable “design hypothesis”: an idea about how to decrease error or how to increase the quality of outcomes from reasoning. As problems in contemporary argumentation practice become more complex, design thinking rises in relevance and importance. A design research agenda in argumentation would focus on theorizing design innovations and on evaluating design hypotheses. (shrink)

The recent corporate scandals in the United States have caused a renewed interest and focus on teaching business ethics. Business schools and their faculties are reexamining the teaching of business ethics and are reassessing their responsibilities to produce honest and truthful managers who live lives of integrity and ethical accountability. The authors recognize that no agreement exists among business schools and their faculties regarding what should be the content and pedagogy of a course in business ethics. However, the authors hold (...) that regardless of one’s biases regarding the content and pedagogy, the effective teaching of business ethics requires that the instructor in designing and delivering a business ethics course needs to focus particular attention on four principal questions: (1) what are the objectives or targeted learning outcomes of the course? (2) what kind of learning environment should be created? (3) what learning processes need to be employed to achieve the goals? and (4) what are the roles of the participants in the learning experience? The answers to these questions provide the foundations for any business ethics course. The answers are major determinants of the impact of a business ethics course on the thinking of students and the views on the ethical and professional accountabilities and responsibilities of managers in the workplace. (shrink)

Empirical research in bioethics has developed rapidly over the past decade, but has largely eschewed the use of technology-driven methodologies. We propose “design bioethics” as an area of conjoined theoretical and methodological innovation in the field, working across bioethics, health sciences and human-centred technological design. We demonstrate the potential of digital tools, particularly purpose-built digital games, to align with theoretical frameworks in bioethics for empirical research, integrating context, narrative and embodiment in moral decision-making. Purpose-built digital tools can engender (...) situated engagement with bioethical questions; can achieve such engagement at scale; and can access groups traditionally under-represented in bioethics research and theory. If developed and used with appropriate rigor, tools motivated by “design bioethics” could offer unique insights into new and familiar normative and empirical issues in the field. (shrink)

Experimental design is one aspect of a scientific method. A well-designed, properly conducted experiment aims to control variables in order to isolate and manipulate causal effects and thereby maximize internal validity, support causal inferences, and guarantee reliable results. Traditionally employed in the natural sciences, experimental design has become an important part of research in the social and behavioral sciences. Experimental methods are also endorsed as the most reliable guides to policy effectiveness. Through a discussion of some of the (...) central concepts associated with experimental design, including controlled variation and randomization, this chapter will provide a summary of key ethical issues that tend to arise in experimental contexts. In addition, by exploring assumptions about the nature of causation and by analyzing features of causal relationships, systems, and inferences in social contexts, this chapter will summarize the ways in which experimental design can undermine the integrity of not only social and behavioral research but policies implemented on the basis of such research. (shrink)

The design inference uncovers intelligent causes by isolating their key trademark: specified events of small probability. Just about anything that happens is highly improbable, but when a highly improbable event is also specified undirected natural causes lose their explanatory power. Design inferences can be found in a range of scientific pursuits from forensic science to research into the origins of life to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. This challenging and provocative 1998 book shows how incomplete undirected causes are (...) for science and breathes new life into classical design arguments. It will be read with particular interest by philosophers of science and religion, other philosophers concerned with epistemology and logic, probability and complexity theorists, and statisticians. (shrink)

The book introduces young researchers to phenomenology and the two primary philosophical approaches along with the vocabulary of phenomenology including how to set up the research design and execute the study to include data collection, data analysis, and presentation of findings.

This chapter explores the question of whether robots can make gestures that can be described as related to the intentionality of the robots themselves and not to the intentionality of their designers. For this exploration, robots are approached as entities designed by humans. Dennett’s stance framework is adopted for analysing descriptions of robot gestures and this framework is generalised to one in which not only single stances can be used to describe robots, but also pair of stances where one is (...) applied to the robot and one to its designers. Conclusions are that Dennett’s framework warrants descriptions of robot gestures in terms of robot intentionality and does more often so as compared to more fundamental approaches to agency in which it should be first determined that robots have agency. Yet, in the case of robots displaying unexcepted gestures, more fundamental approaches may warrant descriptions of robot gestures in terms of robot intentionality that cannot be adopted on Dennett’s approach. (shrink)