INVESTIGADORES
LAWLER Diego
capítulos de libros
Título:
Creating Artifactual Kinds
Autor/es:
LAWLER, DIEGO Y VEGA, JESÚS
Libro:
Artifacts Kinds. Ontology and the Human-Made World. Synthese Library: Collection: Studies in Epistemology, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science.
Editorial:
Synthese Library Vol. 365. Springer
Referencias:
Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2013; p. 105 - 124
Resumen:
The aim of this paper is to assess how two widespread types of theory on the nature of artifacts kinds (i.e., functional and intentional theories) address the creation requirement, which demands an account of the appearance of genuinely new artifacts resulting from intentional creative processes. It attempts to show that both types of position do not answer this requirement. Functional theories that refer to a causal reproductive history cannot account for the nature of newly created artifact kinds, because artifacts belonging to these kinds do not have ancestors. Intentional theories that make the emergence of a new artifact kind dependent on the possession of a new concept of that artifact kind face a dilemma: either they excessively weaken the conditions for possessing a concept of an artifact kind, or they need to concede that the constitution of the newly created kind cannot depend completely on such a concept. We conclude the paper by arguing that if any account which treats artifacts as products of intentional creations cannot be separated from adopting an stance on what artifacts really are, then there are four aspects that must be taken into account for satisfactorily dealing with the ontology of artifacts.