Het oneigenlijk gebruik van artefacten

Dit artikel is geschreven in het kader van het NWO-onderzoeksprogramma ‘The Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts’. Doel van dit programma is om een filosofie van artefacten te ontwikkelen door toepassing en uitwerking van theorieën uit de analytische traditie in de filosofie, zoals handelingstheorie en filosofie van de geest. Zie voor een beschrijving van dit programma P.E. Vermaas, ‘De duale aard van technische artefacten: een onderzoek naar een coherente conceptualisatie’, FILOSOFIE 10 (2000), no. 2, 25-29 en de ‘Dual Nature’-website www.dualnature.tudelft.nl. Het onderzoek van de auteur betreft de samenhang tussen artefacten, hun functies en menselijk handelen. De analyse van de kern begrippen ‘ontwerp’ en ‘gebruik’ ult de techniek in termen van gebruiksplannen, zoals weergegeven in dit artikel, is onder andere een eerste poging om deze samenhang te beschrijven. Daarnaast biedt het de mogelijkheid het verschil tussen artefacten en natuurlijke voorwerpen te verhelderen

The open border : two cases of concept transfer from organisms to artifacts

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Normativity in Quine's naturalism: the technology of truth-seeking?

In this paper, I review Quine's response to the normativity charge against naturalized epistemology. On this charge, Quine's naturalized epistemology neglects the essential normativity of the traditional theory of knowledge and hence cannot count as its successor. According to Quine, normativity is retained in naturalism as ‘the technology of truth-seeking’. I first disambiguate Quine's naturalism into three programs of increasing strength and clarify the strongest program by means of the so-called Epistemic Skinner Box. Then, I investigate two ways in which the appeal to technology as normative enterprise can be made good. I argue that neither coheres with other aspects of Quine's philosophy, most notably the elimination of intentionality. Finally, I briefly consider a third reconstruction of the response, which involves an extension of the web of belief to practical know-how. I conclude that the normativity of Quine's (strong) naturalism cannot be found in the technology of truth-seeking

Knowledge of artefact functions

I argue that technological functions warrant specific epistemological attention, which they have not received thus far. From a user’s perspective, knowledge about the possible functions of an artefact is not provided exclusively by beliefs about its physical characteristics; it is primarily provided by know-how related to its use. Analysing the latter shows that standards of practical and not just theoretical reasoning are involved. Moreover, knowledge of the (proper) function of artefacts is primarily based on testimony and a social division of labour with respect to rational artefact use. Combining these two features, knowledge of functions can be shown to create a rich normative context, manifest in notions such as ‘improper’ use: designers inform users about how they ought to use artefacts. This normativity in knowledge of functions, which takes a different shape for possible and proper functions, is lacking in standard, descriptive knowledge. Keywords: Epistemology; Function; Knowing-how; Testimony; Artefact; Practical rationalit

Technical functions : a drawbridge between the intentional and structural nature of technical artefacts

In this paper we present an action-theoretic account of artefact using and designing and describe our ICE-theory of function ascriptions to technical artefacts. By means of this account and theory we analyse the thesis of the dual nature of technical artefacts according to which descriptions of technical artefacts draw on structural and intentional conceptualisations. We show that the ascription of technical functions to technical artefacts can connect the intentional and structural parts of descriptions of artefacts, but also separate these parts. Our conclusion is that the concept of technical functions forms a ‘conceptual drawbridge’ between the intentional and structural natures of technical artefacts. Keywords: Intentional and structural descriptions; Technical artefacts; Function theory; Action theory; Use; Desig

Complexity and technological evolution: What everybody knows?:What everybody knows?

The consensus among cultural evolutionists seems to be that human cultural evolution is cumulative, which is commonly understood in the specific sense that cultural traits, especially technological traits, increase in complexity over generations. Here we argue that there is insufficient credible evidence in favor of or against this technological complexity thesis. For one thing, the few datasets that are available hardly constitute a representative sample. For another, they substantiate very specific, and usually different versions of the complexity thesis or, even worse, do not point to complexity increases. We highlight the problems our findings raise for current work in cultural-evolutionary theory, and present various suggestions for future research

Ascribing functions to technical artifacts : a challenge to etiological accounts of functions

The aim of this paper is to evaluate etiological accounts of functions for the domain of technical artefacts. Etiological theories ascribe functions to items on the basis of the causal histories of those items; they apply relatively straightforwardly to the biological domain, in which neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory provides a well-developed and generally accepted background for describing the causal histories of biological items. Yet there is no well-developed and generally accepted theory for describing the causal history of artefacts, so the application of etiological theories to the technical domain is hardly straightforward. In this paper we consider the transposition of etiological theories in general from the biological to the technical domain. We argue that a number of etiological theories that appear defensible for biology become untenable for technology. We illustrate our argument by showing that the standard etiological accounts of Neander and Millikan, and some recent attempts to improve on them, provide examples of such untenable theories

Waar is dit ding voor? : een innovatieve etiologische theorie voor artefactfuncties

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Transfer and templates in scientific modelling

The notion of template has been advocated by Paul Humphreys and others as an illuminating unit of analysis in the philosophy of scientific modelling. Templates are supposed to have the dual functions of representing target systems and of facilitating quantitative manipulation. A resulting worry is that wide-ranging cross-disciplinary use of templates might compromise their representational function and reduce them to mere formalisms. In this paper, we argue that templates are valuable units of analysis in reconstructing cross-disciplinary modelling. Central to our discussion are the ways in which Lotka-Volterra models are used to analyse processes of technology diffusion. We illuminate both the similarities and differences between contributions to this case of cross-disciplinary modelling by reconstructing them as transfer of a template, without reducing the template to a mere formalism or a computational model. This requires differentiating the interpretation of templates from that of the models based on them. This differentiation allows us to claim that the LV models of technology diffusion that we review are the result of template transfer - conformist in some contributions, creative in others