Naturalness, Artefacts, and Value

Abstract

Most of us have an intuitive understanding of the ontology of artifacts – we have a grasp of what an artifact is. An archetypal technical artifact consists of some tangible physical stuff that someone has modified to make it useful for some practical purpose – such as when wood and metal are treated and shaped to make a hoe, or when a piece of plastic is molded to make a canoe. I believe that this intuitive understanding is neatly captured by the following definition of (technical) artifacts proposed by Peter Kroes and Anthonie Meijers: They are “(i) designed physical structures, which realize (ii) functions, which refer to human intentionality” (Kroes and Meijers 2006, p. 2).

Keywords

Constituent Part; Environmental Ethic; Intuitive Understanding; Natural Risk; Spider Silk

Published in

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology
2013, volume: 9, number: 9, pages: 207-221
Title: Norms in Technology
Publisher: Springer Nature

SLU Authors

• Sandin, Per

  • Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Philosophy

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5243-6_13
• ISBN: 978-94-007-5242-9
• eISBN: 978-94-007-5243

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/132155