The ontology of artifacts

Abstract

Beginning with Aristotle, philosophers have taken artifacts to be ontologically deficient. This paper proposes a theory of artifacts, according to which artifacts are ontologically on a par with other material objects. I formulate a nonreductive theory that regards artifacts as constituted by—but not identical to—aggregates of particles. After setting out the theory, I rebut a number of arguments that disparage the ontological status of artifacts.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Gareth B. Matthews for commenting on a draft. Also, thanks to an anonymous referee of Philosophical Explorations for recommending several improvements.

Notes

I am assuming here the classical conception of identity, according to which if a = b, then necessarily, a = b.

For greater detail, see Baker (2000). See also the Book Symposium on Persons and Bodies (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 2002) and Baker (2002).

Here and elsewhere I'll omit reference to times.

The identity of an aggregate is determined only by the items in it, not by their arrangement. One and the same aggregate may be of any ‘shape’.

I want an aggregate of things of different materials to illustrate my view. I realize that some construe ‘aggregate’ to refer to things that are further divisible into things of the same kind—like aggregates of iron atoms. But all I mean by ‘aggregate’ is a collection of items. But see Lowe (1994, 537).

There is much more to be said about the idea of constitution. See Baker (1999, 2000, especially Chap. 2).

Note that this is a completely general claim. It is not ‘property dualism’.

Organisms and aggregates of cells illustrate constitution between non-artifacts.

There is a lot of literature on functions. For example, see Elder (1995). See also Vermaas and Houkes (2003) which is very useful. As Vermaas and Houkes point out, some philosophers take the notion of biological function to be basic and then try to apply or transform theories of biological function, which since Darwin are non-intentionalist, reproduction theories, to artifacts. I believe that Vermaas and Houkes are entirely correct to liberate the theory of artifacts from the notion of function in biology.

More precisely, a non-derivative artifact has its proper function essentially. The constituter of an artifact inherits the non-derivative artifact's proper function and thus has it contingently (as long as it constitutes the non-derivative artifact).

In thinking about these matters, I found useful Hilpinen (1993), as well as Dipert (1993). For an insightful discussion of artifacts, see Thomasson (1999).

I do not want to rule out ‘degenerate’ cases in which a natural object is appropriated without alteration. For example, a piece of (unaltered) driftwood may be brushed off and used as a coffee table. Thanks to an anonymous referee of this journal for bringing this lacuna to my attention.

I am omitting as irrelevant here clause (6) in the original definition that guarantees that a material thing cannot constitute an immaterial thing. Also, the definition needs a clause to ensure that, aside from G, x has no primary-kind property of higher-order than F. I define ‘higher-order primary-kind property’ in terms of higher-order causal powers. Derk Pereboom (2002) presented a counter-example that the added clause blocks. Tomas Kakol (private communication) suggested adding a clause to the definition like this: ‘∀J [J is a higher-order primary-kind property than F & J does not entail G→∼Jxt]’.

Most famously, Peter van Inwagen (1990, 111) holds that ‘there are no material objects but organisms and simples’. He proposes that we paraphrase sentences like ‘there are some tables here’ into sentences like ‘there are some x's arranged tablewise here’. Van Inwagen would not countenance non-living natural objects as well as artifacts; he would paraphrase ‘Here is a lump of gold’ as ‘Here are gold atoms arranged lumpwise’.

All the conditions either follow from, or are part of, the basic distinction that Wiggins draws between natural objects and artifacts. There is a complex condition that natural objects allegedly satisfy and artifacts do not: ‘… a particular constituent x belongs to a natural kind, or is a natural thing, if and only if x has a principle of activity founded in lawlike dispositions and propensities that form the basis for extension-involving sortal identification(s) which will answer truly the question “what is x?”’ (Wiggins 2001, 89). According to Wiggins, natural objects satisfy this condition and artifacts do not. I am not claiming that Wiggins denies that there exist artifacts, only that he distinguishes between natural and artifactual kinds in a way that may be taken to imply the ontological inferiority of artifacts.

A substance has ‘within itself a principle of motion and stationariness (in respect of place, or of growth and decrease, or by way of alteration)’ (Aristotle, Physics 192b8–23).

Although nylon and polythene are of kinds determined by chemical composition, they are manufactured artificial human products, and their proper function is their use in various kinds of products.

This claim is similar to the notion that natural-kind terms, but not artificial-kind terms, are rigid designators. (A rigid designator has the same referent in every possible world.) However, what makes the difference between ‘whale’ and ‘bachelor’ is not that only the former is rigid. Rather, only the former term ‘has its reference determined by causal contact with paradigm samples of the relevant kind’. There is no reason that the terms cannot both be rigid. See LaPorte (2000, 304).

Although Wiggins is an Aristotelian, this is not Aristotle's view. For Aristotle, nominal definitions are reference fixers, used to identify objects for scientific study; they contain information that a scientist has before having an account of the essence of the objects. Real definitions are discovered by scientific inquiry and give knowledge of the essences of objects identified by nominal definitions. Nominal and real definitions are not accounts of different types of entities. Rather, they are different types of accounts of the same entities. Members of a particular natural kind have the same essence (underlying structure). See Bolton (1976).

Aristotle would agree with me on this point, I believe. His reason for downgrading artifacts ontologically is that artifacts have no natures in themselves.

Moreover, indexicality should not be confused with rigidity, which does not concern how a term gets connected to a referent. For criticism of Putnam's confusion of the causal theory of reference and indexicality, see Burge (1982).

Joseph LaPorte (2000) points out that some kind expressions (both natural and artifactual) designate rigidly, and some designate non-rigidly.

Elder (1995) discusses this point. For a congenial alternative, see Thomasson (forthcoming).

The lead researcher, Derek Lovley, who coined the term ‘bacterial battery’, is a microbiologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

E-mail update from Scientific American, 23 September 2003.

Although I avoid the ‘qua’ locution, the way that I have elucidated ‘Fs have ontological significance’ suggests that an alternative to that expression might be ‘Fs-qua-Fs have ontological significance’.