Artifacts and fiat objects: two families apart?

Fiat objects may come into existence by intentional explicit defnition and convention or they can be the result of some spontaneous and unintentional activity resulting in tracing fat spatial boundaries. Artifacts and fiat objects seem intuitively to be correlated: both artifacts and fiat objects depend for their existence on agents and their intentions. Is it possible to consider fiat objects as artifacts and to what extent? Or else can we conceive at least some artifacts as fiat objects? In order to draw a map of the possible answers to these two questions we will take into account various defnitions of artifacts stemming from the two classical approaches: the intentional and the functional one

Artifact Concept Pluralism

We have a rough idea of what artifacts are: artifacts are objects made to serve a certain purpose. However, there is no consensus on how to specify this definition. Essentialists argue that objects are grouped into artifact kinds by sharing non-trivial artifact essences, while anti-essentialists argue that there is no such essence to be found. However, the prominent essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts suffer from extensional and definitional problems. I argue that the problems current essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts face mainly stem from the assumption of artifact concept monism. According to artifact concept monism, there is only a single way to group objects into artifact kinds. To remedy the problems that stem from artifact concept monism, this paper offers an alternative framework by drawing parallels from the debates on species concept pluralism and art concept pluralism

A Metaphysics of Artifacts: Essence and Mind-Dependence

My dissertation explores the nature of artifacts – things like chairs, tables, and pinball machines – and addresses the question of whether there is anything essential to being an artifact and a member of a particular artifact kind. My dissertation offers new arguments against both the anti-essentialist and current essentialist proposals. Roughly put, the view is that artifacts are successful products of an intention to make something with certain features constitutive of an artifact kind. The constitutive features are often functional features, but may include structural, material, aesthetic, and other features. I further explore the ways in which artifacts are mind-dependent and I argue that this dependence is disjunctive. Not only do they depend on the intentions of their makers, but they also can depend on social groups or public norms and thus artifacts have an importantly social dimension and I argue that this disjunctive account applies not to artifact kinds but to individual artifacts depending on their context of creation

Varieties of the extended self

This article provides an overview and analysis of recent work on the extended self, demonstrating that the boundaries of selves are fluid, shifting across biological, artifactual, and sociocultural structures. First, it distinguishes the notions of minimal self, person, and narrative self. Second, it surveys how philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists argue that embodiment, cognition, emotion, consciousness, and moral character traits can be extended and what that implies for the boundaries of selves. It also reviews and responds to various criticisms and counterarguments against the extended self. The main focus is on the link between the extended mind and extended self, which has received the most attention in recent literature. But accounts of the extended self developed independently of the extended mind are also briefly discussed. This article ends by drawing out some of the conceptual, methodological, and normative implications of the extended self and suggesting some directions for future research

Dimensions of integration in embedded and extended cognitive systems

The complementary properties and functions of cognitive artifacts and other external resources are integrated into the human cognitive system to varying degrees. The goal of this paper is to develop some of the tools to conceptualize this complementary integration between agents and artifacts. It does so by proposing a multidimensional framework, including the dimensions of information flow, reliability, durability, trust, procedural transparency, informational transparency, individualization, and transformation. The proposed dimensions are all matters of degree and jointly they constitute a multidimensional space in which situated cognitive systems can be located and have certain dimensional configurations. These dimensions provide a new perspective on the conditions for cognitive extension. They are, however, not meant to provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, but to provide a toolbox for investigating the degree and nature of the integration of agent and artifact into “new systemic wholes”. The higher a situated system scores on the proposed dimensions, the more functional integration occurs, and the more tightly coupled the system is.22 page(s

What is the nature of the distinction between events and processes?

A distinction of ontological category is often drawn between events and process, analogous to the distinction between particular spatial things and the matter from which they’re made. The traditional arguments for the distinction arise from observations of the aspectual differences of verbs – e.g. ‘pushed’ and ‘pushing’ – made by Zeno Vendler and Anthony Kenny and then developed by Alexander Mourelatos. Mourelatos identifies a difference of apparent quantification in the nominalisations of sentences with aspectual differences of their verbs: ‘Jones pushed the cart to the top of the hill’ transforms to ‘there was a pushing of the cart to the top of the hill by Jones’ – a count-quantified sentence, whereas ‘Jones pushed the cart for hours’ transforms to ‘there was pushing of the cart for hours by Jones’ – a mass-quantified sentence. Mourelatos then takes these apparent differences to be metaphysically perspicuous, revealing a categorical distinction between events and process, where process is understood as the stuff of time. Rowland Stout offers a different articulation of the distinction, arguing that it is a distinction between events and processes, i.e. a distinction between two categories of particular. I argue that both proposals have their merit; Mourelatos is right to treat process as the stuff of time, and Stout is right to recognise individual processes. Drawing on Thomas Crowther’s work, who suggests that what is salient to the distinction are matters of form and differences in restrictiveness of boundaries, I go on to present an understanding of individual processes as dynamic, growing entities, and defend the position that recognises events and processes as belonging to distinct metaphysical categories. Kathleen Gill has levelled objections to the recognition of such a distinction, claiming that there are few grounds for regarding the distinction as genuinely metaphysical, and suggested instead that it is better understood as artifactual. I explore the notion of an artefact in relation to events and processes, and show that while the distinction does appear to be artifactual in the restricted realm of agent activity and action, it is not plausible to regard it as artifactual outside of this realm. I articulate the distinction between events and processes as one of a difference between completing and finishing, where completing is understood as coming to exemplify a sortal

Function essentialism about artifacts

Much recent discussion has focused on the nature of artifacts, particularly on whether artifacts have essences. While the general consensus is that artifacts are at least intention-dependent, an equally common view is function essentialism about artifacts, the view that artifacts are essentially functional objects and that membership in an artifact kind is determined by a particular, shared function. This paper argues that function essentialism about artifacts is false. First, the two component conditions of function essentialism are given a clear and precise formulation, after which counterexamples are offered to each. Second, ways to handle the counterexamples suggested by Randall Dipert and Simon Evnine are considered and rejected. Third, I then consider the prospects for restricting function essentialism to so-called technical artifacts, as Lynne Baker does, and argue that this, too, fails. This paper thereby consolidates the scattered literature on function essentialism and shows that, despite the seeming plausibility of the thesis, it should be rejected as an account of artifact essences