Abstract
As is well-known Aristotle’s view on nature, including inanimate natural objects, was thoroughly teleological. He distinguishes between things that exist by nature and those that exist by other causes (Physica, book II, 192b). Things that exist by nature, natural things, are characterised by the fact that they carry within themselves their principle of change. Nature, according to Aristotle, is “a source or cause of being moved and of being at rest” within a thing, which it has by virtue of being that thing. In other words, a natural thing is a thing that, by being that thing, carries within itself its own principle of motion or change (for biological organisms this includes change in the sense of reproduction). This principle of motion is called its nature and is directed towards the realisation of its goal or telos.
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- 1.
Note that Aristotle defines nature as a cause or principle of motion and not as a collection of things (and/or phenomena). In line with Aristotle’s definition of nature as a cause, nature in the sense of the natural world (a collection of things and/or phenomena) may be defined as those things which “exist by nature”, i.e., which carry within themselves their own principle of motion.
- 2.
As Aristotle remarks (192b): “…a bed and a coat and anything else of that sort, qua receiving these designations – i.e. in so far as they are products of art – have no innate impulse to change. But in so far as they happen to be composed of stone or of earth or of a mixture of the two, they do have such an impulse, and just to that extent – which seems to indicate that nature is a source or cause of being moved and being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not in virtue of a concomitant attribute.” Thus (193a) “if you planted a bed and the rotting wood acquired the power of sending up a shoot, it would not be a bed that would come up, but wood.”
- 3.
This idea still lies at the bottom of the modern conception of nature as that which is untouched by human beings.
- 4.
According to Perlman (2004, p. 4) by “the twentieth century, analytic philosophers were positively allergic to any mention of teleology or teleological function. It was seen as an insidious metaphysical notion that was to be tossed out with the rest of metaphysics.”
- 5.
According to this line of reasoning, physical objects may be said to have a nature and to behave natural; this would be true irrespective of whether these physical objects are human-made or not; see the discussion in section 2.3.
- 6.
For a general survey, see Perlman (2004)
- 7.
For more details and references, see Perlman (2004).
- 8.
- 9.
X may also stand for a natural object that performs a function, but it is debatable whether in that case we are dealing with technical artefacts, because the physical object involved is not a human-made construction.
- 10.
Strictly speaking we should say: “X has the function to ϕ with” and “The function of X is to ϕ with”, which brings out more clearly the role of the human agent (be it the designer who intended the technical artefact to be used in a certain way or the user); to avoid cumbersome language I will stick to the present formulation.
- 11.
In the following I will use expressions like ‘the property of being for ϕ-ing’ as synonymous with ‘the property ‘for ϕ-ing’.
- 12.
Treating kinds and types as properties (universals) may raise problems; Wetzel (2006) notes that types (kinds) are not as obviously predicable as classic examples of universals (properties) because they are often referred to by singular terms (e.g., the ivory-billed woodpecker). I assume that such problems do not arise with regard to treating being an instance of a technical kind as properties.
- 13.
This assumption may be questioned. Consider, for instance, a model boat. If it is taken to be a boat, then it certainly does not have the function of (is not for) transporting people or goods over water (see Bloom (1996) and Thomasson (2007)). Whether a model boat is a real boat, however, is a controversial claim. After all, when a model boat is taken to be a real boat and it is a model of a real (actual) boat, then it will be necessary to distinguish between different senses of what it means to be a real boat. I will interpret the predicate ‘model’ in such instances in a privative sense and therefore they cannot be taken to be counterexamples to the assumption that “X is a ϕ-er” implies “X is for ϕ-ing”.
- 14.
For the distinction between epistemic and ontological theories of functions, see also Vermaas (2009).
- 15.
The quote from Cummins in section 2.5.1 illustrates this point.
- 16.
Note that Hansson relates a performative function ascription to the assignment of a function to an object that that “object did not have before”. By taking over Searle’s notion of function assignment, I drop the latter requirement.
- 17.
In their 2003 paper Houkes and Vermaas do not explicitly state whether the function ascription of their ICE-theory is to be taken in the descriptive or performative sense. I take their original ICE-function theory to be a descriptive function ascription theory. In later work Houkes and Vermaas (2010) explicitly present the ICE-theory as a descriptive theory.
- 18.
Condition C may be taken to express a belief of agent a by reformulating it in the following way: the agent a believes that his capacity belief and contribution belief of condition I may be justified on the basis of A.
- 19.
I call it a “Cummins-style theory” because the analytical account A is suppressed; see Cummins (1975).
- 20.
Note that McLaughlin uses the notion of function ascription in an ontological sense (as opposed to the epistemological sense defined above).
- 21.
See also Dipert’s discussion (1993, p. 15) of what it means for an object to be artifactual.
- 22.
I put ontological commitments between quotation marks because this notion was originally developed by Quine for formalized theories, whereas here it is used in the context of informal theories; see Quine (1980).
- 23.
See also Vermaas and Houkes (2006, p. 8) who distinguish between different perspectives that agents may take with regard to a technical artefact, namely of a user, a designer and a observer. They do not, however, relate their distinction of different perspectives to the distinction between function ascriptions in the descriptive and the performative sense. I take it that the observer perspective is related to function ascription whereas the designer and user perspective are related to function assignment.
- 24.
See, for instance, Thomasson’s discussion of our epistemic relation to artifactual kinds in (Thomasson 2007).
- 25.
For a survey of theories of artefact functions, see Preston (2009b).
- 26.
Page numbers refer to Searle (1995).
- 27.
That is the reason why Perlman (2004) classifies Searle’s theory of functions as naturalistic and non-reducible.
- 28.
Searle’s position with regard to epistemologically objective, but ontologically subjective facts is strongly similar to Thomasson’s position on the possibility of a realist epistemology for mind-dependent artefact kinds (see section 3.4).
- 29.
See also Thomasson (2003, p. 599, footnote 25).
- 30.
On this point there is some tension in Preston’s analysis. She remarks that (1998, p. 247) “This replacement of one proper function with another is common among artifacts”, which suggests that it may be easy to change proper functions of artefacts. However, in discussing ‘ongoing system functions’ (that is, system functions that do not disappear but also are not transformed into proper functions by selection) she remarks that changes of ongoing systems functions into proper functions are rare (1998, p. 241). But since all new proper functions start out as (ongoing) system functions, this seems to imply that changes of proper functions are rare, since they involve (1998, p. 248) a “wholesale reproduction only for that new function.”
- 31.
- 32.
A similar position has been defended by Griffiths (1993).
- 33.
I interpret Preston’s definition as saying that a proper function is attributed to a token of an artefact type relative to an explanation of a history of use and reproduction of artefact tokens of that type. This makes proper function attribution a relational affair.
- 34.
See also Vermaas and Houkes (2003).
- 35.
According to Hilpinen (1992, p. 69) the adoption of natural objects for practical purposes may be considered a limiting case of making an artefact.
- 36.
Of course, design engineers may be said to ‘use’ physical objects and processes when creating the video recorder in the sense that they simply rearrange existing objects. In this fundamental sense, however, also artists are not creating anything but using pre-existing things and all human action on matter would be a form of use.
- 37.
In the following, page numbers without years refer to Houkes and Vermaas (2010).
- 38.
It is not a theory of artefacts, as stated in the quote, that should satisfy these desiderata but a theory of functions; in the accompanying text this is stated explicitly. Only at the end of their book Houkes and Vermaas address problems concerning a theory of artefacts.
- 39.
Note that there are considerable changes in the formulation of the above list of desiderata when compared to the list presented in Vermaas and Houkes (2003, p. 265-266), especially with regard to the support (or physical structure) desideratum. From the point of view of the method of conceptual engineering such changes are to be expected: it is common practice that design specifications are changed during a design process.
- 40.
In their review Houkes and Vermaas (2010, section 3.5) also examine theories that are combinations of these basic theories, but find them all lacking.
- 41.
Note that whereas the ICE-theory is a theory of function ascriptions, the caption of Table 4.2 reads “The three ICE-definitions for functional descriptions.” More often in their book (see for instance p. 88, 99, 121) Houkes and Vermaas appear to make a distinction between functional descriptions and function ascriptions. I will come back to their notion of function ascription shortly.
- 42.
For a definition of the roles of designer and passive user, see their Table 4.1 (p. 84).
- 43.
In earlier work, Houkes and Vermaas leave open the possibility that the distinction between proper and accidental functions is not exhaustive (Vermaas and Houkes 2003, p. 265, note 3); this could be an example of a function ascription that is neither proper nor accidental. I will assume that the distinction is exhaustive, but not crisp, that is, there is a fuzzy zone where it is difficult to decide whether an artefact has a proper or accidental function.
- 44.
See also p. 149, where they discuss the persistence conditions for artefacts. These run parallel to the conditions for ICE-function ascriptions: “A car that is wrecked beyond repair in a crash is then no longer a car, but a mere aggregate of twisted steel and plastic.”
- 45.
See also Hansson (2006) and Scheele (2005, 2006).
- 46.
Note that Houkes and Vermaas run up against the limits of their use-plan approach in reconstructing functional descriptions when discussing functional-role ascriptions by analysts (p. 99); these cannot be reconstructed as function ascriptions relative to use-plans and so they are conceptually different. Interestingly, functional-role ascriptions involve describing a component as functioning as a ϕ-er (one of the few times that the notion of a ϕ-er turns up in their analysis), that is, as an instance of a particular technical kind, whereas function ascriptions relative to use-plans involve the ascription of the capacity to ϕ as a function. This may be taken as an indication that issues about kindhood are conceptually different from proper functions defined relative to use-plans.
- 47.
However, Vermaas (2009) presents the theory as an epistemic theory, that is, as a descriptive function-ascription theory (since function assignment is not an epistemic act). Hansson (2006, p. 21) also interprets an earlier version of the ICE-theory in the descriptive sense.
- 48.
If the ICE-theory is taken to be a theory that spells out the conditions for justified function assignments, then the task remains of working out the details of mind-dependent epistemic and ontological theories of functions in which these function assignments play a role; see, for instance, the suggestion by Hansson (2006, p. 22).
- 49.
In (Preston 2008, p. 28) she writes that she doubts whether “the proper functions of artifacts are dependent on human intentions in any relevant sense.” In her latest proposal for the definition of proper functions (Preston 2009a), however, human intentions do appear to play a role because of the reference to the notion of explanation.
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Kroes, P. (2012). Theories of technical functions. In: Technical Artefacts: Creations of Mind and Matter. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3940-6_3
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