La creación de clases artificiales

LAWLER, DIEGO

Buenos Aires

Congreso; III Congreso Iberamericano de Filosofía de la Ciencia y la Tecnología; 2010

Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero - Universidad Nacional de Quilmes.

Two theoretical frameworks have been proposed to account for the nature of artifactual kinds. One of them views artifacts as functional objects. This is called ‘the functional view’. The other -namely, ‘the historical-intentional view’- regards artifacts as constituted by the concepts and intentions of makers. The functional view classifies artifacts in terms of the functions they perform. The historical-intentional view defends that an artifact being a member of a kind depends on having been created with the intention of being the object that really is. One of the constraints to be met by any theory of artifacts is the explanation of the possibility of innovation, i.e. of introducing newly created artifactual kinds. It has been argued that only historical-intentional views are able to explain this feature. However, we will show that the historical-intentional theory also encounter many troubles in explaining how new artifactual kinds come into being. The paper is organized as follows. In the first part the main claims of the historical-intentional view are clarified and discussed. The bulk of the historical-intentional argument suggests that for creating a new artifactual kind two conditions are to be met: (1) the maker's actions must be guided and controlled by an intention, which has to include a concept of the kind of thing she is trying to make, and a substantive “idea” about the properties an object must have in order to be a member of the kind of things to be created; and (2) the intention must be successfully satisfied, i.e. the content of the maker's intention must be practically realized. We argue that this view faces serious objections. It cannot give a plausible account of two things: how the content of the maker’s intention is determined, and how this content is satisfied by the productive action of the maker. Generally speaking, it seems doubtful that the creation of a new artifact or a new artifactual kind needs the prior existence of a well-defined concept of the new object or kind to be made, and that the making of the artifact or kind should be precisely guided by this concept. As part of our argument, we defend the following intuition: the intentions are not fully formed until a new created artifactual kind has been completely realized. In the second part of the paper, we motivate a different view regarding the nature of artifactual kinds, which we call ‘a broad functional view’. In this view, artefacts are an important part of our material culture. They populate our ordinary world, i.e. the world we basically interact with. Elaborating on Herbert Simon’s contribution, we considerer that artifacts should be seen as interfaces between the internal structure of an object and the environment. In particular these interfaces are characterized by a set of regularities which are grounded in very nature of the object. This set of regularities comprises the following two types: (1) Causal patterns derived from the link between the causal dispositions in the internal structure of the objects and the ways of manipulating it. (2) Links established between the objects and an environment of intentional agents and actions (dispositions linked to plan-building and end-oriented activities). In our view, the nature of the object is determined by both types of regularities.