## 1. Definition



A standard philosophical definition of
"artifact"--often assumed even when not explicitly
stated--is that artifacts are objects made intentionally, in
order to accomplish some purpose (Hilpinen 1992; 2011). This
definition is rooted ultimately in Aristotle's distinction
between things that exist by nature and things that exist by craft
(*Metaphysics* 1033a ff., *Nicomachean Ethics* 1140a
ff., *Physics* 192b ff.). Those that exist by nature have their
origin in themselves, whereas those that exist by craft have their
origin in the craftsperson--specifically, in the form of the
thing as it exists in the mind of the maker. Both Aristotle and his
contemporary descendants are primarily concerned to distinguish
artifacts from objects that occur naturally, without any human
intervention.



On this standard definition, artifacts must satisfy three conditions.
They must be intentionally produced, thus ruling out unintended
by-products of intentional actions, such as the shavings that result
from woodcarving, as well as all naturally occurring objects, such as
salamanders and stars. They must involve modification of materials,
thus ruling out naturally occurring objects even when used
intentionally for a purpose, such as sticks thrown to amuse your dog.
And they must be produced for a purpose. This rules out intentionally
modified objects that are nevertheless not intended to accomplish any
further goal, such as the scraps produced when you intentionally, but
for no particular reason, tear up a piece of paper before throwing it
away. Presumably, then, these three conditions are intended to be
individually necessary and jointly sufficient to distinguish artifacts
from naturally occurring objects.



Three remarks about this definition are in order. First, it does not
rule out the possibility that at least some things made by non-human
animals are artifacts. Spider webs do have a purpose, for instance,
and are clearly made rather than naturally occurring. But we may
hesitate to attribute intention to the spiders, given the instinctive
nature of their web-weaving behavior. Beavers, on the other hand,
might be thought to intentionally construct dams in order to create
ponds. This implication of the standard definition fits well with the
burgeoning evidence for sophisticated cognition among non-human
animals in general, and their ability to manufacture and use tools and
other structures in particular (Shumaker, Walkup, & Beck 2011;
Gould & Gould 2007). This is an important area of research in
ethology and comparative psychology. However, for the purposes of this
article we will focus on human artifacts.



Second, many things we would not ordinarily label as artifacts in
English might nevertheless count under this definition. We usually
reserve the term "artifact" for tangible, durable objects
such as an archaeologist might unearth. But objects made intentionally
for a purpose include many that are ephemeral or abstract. Candidates
include musical performances (Dipert 1993), belief systems
(Hilpinen 1995), actions and languages (Evnine 2016), software (Irmak
2012), normativity (Fruge 2022), establishments such as
restaurants (Korman 2020), and artifact types (Reicher
2022). 



Finally, this definition is peculiar to philosophers (Hilpinen 2011;
Dipert 2014). In other disciplines the concern is more to investigate
cognition and behavior involving objects quite generally, without
carving out a domain of artifacts having special ontological status.
Psychologists, for instance, are interested in how children develop
categorizations of things, including artifacts as opposed to
non-artifacts. But there is some evidence that notions of intention or
function enter into this development only at quite a late stage, and
that young children make relevant distinctions more on the basis of
perceptual features such as shape or movement patterns (Keil, Greif,
& Kerner 2007). Thus the standard philosophical definition of
"artifact" might well be more of a hindrance than a help
in the context of such investigations. Archaeologists and
anthropologists, on the other hand, are concerned with the roles
objects play in cultural processes quite generally. From this point of
view, a discarded flint chip is just as important as the hide scraper
from which it was struck, because debitage analysis--the study of
such chips and other production debris--is invaluable for
reconstructing knapping techniques and other aspects of production
processes, including their cognitive underpinnings (Shott 2015; Schick
& Toth 1993). Similarly, a sharp-edged shell used without
modification as a hide scraper is just as important as the
purpose-made flint scraper for understanding the culture in question.
In these disciplines "artifact" tends to be absorbed into
"material culture"--a much broader category--and
is usually understood to include anything made and/or used by
humans (Preston 2013; Kipfer 2007). As the examples above demonstrate,
the making need not be intentional and the use need not involve
modification of the object used. And if any objects of cultural
significance are devoid of purpose or function, that condition of the
philosophical definition, too, would fall by the wayside.
Consequently, as the anthropologist Daniel Miller notes:



> 
> 
> There is little point in attempting to distinguish systematically
> between a natural world and an artefactual one, except when we are
> concerned with the ways in which terms such as "natural"
> may have particular consequences or entailments, as when a commodity
> in the shops is labelled "natural" simply because a single
> ingredient, such as a chemical dye, has been deleted, or when
> something as apparently natural as radiation is taken to be
> antithetical to true "nature". (Miller 1994, 398)
> 
> 
> 



From the perspective of other disciplines, then, the philosophical
insistence on a strict definition of "artifact" aimed at a
bright-line distinction between naturally occurring objects and
artifacts may well appear parochial.



This extra-disciplinary observation points us directly to the central
problem for the standard philosophical definition of
"artifact". Along all three definitional dimensions we
encounter a continuum of cases (Koslicki 2018; Grandy 2007;
Sperber 2007). Paths, for example, are often created unintentionally
just in virtue of people repeatedly traveling along the same straight
line between points *A* and *B*--your kitchen and
your vegetable garden, say. But what is the point of saying that such
a path is not an artifact, whereas an identical one that was created
intentionally by exactly the same process is? Moreover, what would it
take to make the erstwhile non-artifactual path into an artifact?
Would it be enough to notice and approve it? Or would I have to
intentionally maintain it, by sweeping it clean of leaves, for
instance?



Similar difficulties arise with regard to modification, which is
clearly a matter of degree. If I bring an attractive shell home from a
walk on the beach and put it to use as a paperweight, does the
transport count as modification? If not, would washing the shell
before using it be enough? Or polishing it to bring out the color of
its markings? A further complication is that many uses to which
naturally occurring objects are put cause modifications. An unmodified
stone used as a hammer soon acquires a spherical shape (Schick &
Toth 1993, 130 ff.). At what point did it first count as
modified, since even the first strike would break off some fragments?
Or do these use-induced modifications not count for satisfying the
definition at all? If not, why not? The stone is certainly being used
intentionally for a purpose, so the rest of the definition is
satisfied.



Finally, Dan Sperber (2007) argues that even function is continuous
between nature and culture. He begins with the observation that what
he calls biological artifacts--domesticated plants and animals,
for the most part--have both biological and cultural functions.
But they carry out their cultural functions in virtue of carrying out
their biological functions, and *vice versa*. Take seedless
grapes. Their seedlessness might seem to make them purely artifactual,
since the reproductive function of the fruit appears to be lost along
with the seeds. But in fact, Sperber argues, the fruit retains the
biological function of attracting us to eat the fruit and then spread
the plant--not by dispersing seeds, as with seeded grapes, but by
propagating the grapevines vegetatively. This coincidence of
biological and cultural functions in domesticates shows that far from
being the locus of a divide between nature and culture, the realm of
domestication is the locus of their imperceptible merger.



Sperber concludes that "artifact" as a theoretical term
cannot be usefully defined, as any attempt to do so will be
frustrated by the continua detailed above. We may call this the
continuum problem. This concern is echoed by Kathrin Koslicki (2018),
who notes that the common reliance on creators' intentional activity
to distinguish artifacts from naturally occurring objects inevitably
leaves us with objects such as unintended by-products and naturally
occurring objects pressed into service for human purposes which
do not seem to fall readily into either category. She does not
think that current approaches in metaphysics have the resources
to deal with such puzzles about artifacts, and concludes that further
development of these approaches is necessary. For
Sperber--whose training is in anthropology--the lesson is
that the social sciences simply do not need "artifact" as
a term of art. But philosophers, and some other social scientists,
have reacted to the continuum problem by doubling down on their
classification efforts. Risto Hilpinen (2011), following the
anthropologist Wendell Oswalt (1973; 1976), uses the term
"naturefact" for naturally occurring objects used
intentionally, but without modification, for some purpose. Naturefacts
thus lie between naturally occurring objects and artifacts on the
continuum. Hilpinen also suggests that what he calls
"residue"--modified but unintended by-products of
productive activity, such as sawdust--are a conceptually distinct
category of objects also lying somewhere between artifacts and
naturally occurring objects. (A terminological note: in archaeology,
"naturefact" is more usually used to mean an object that
is in fact the result of purely natural processes, but is difficult to
distinguish from an intentionally modified object. This is a problem
that bedevils paleoarchaeologists studying stone tools, in particular
(Schnurrenberger & Bryan 1985). Archaeologists also
sometimes distinguish artifacts from ecofacts--organic or
inorganic remains of archaeological significance that have undergone
no, or minimal, modification by humans, such as animal bones, stored
grain, pollen, charcoal, and the like. Naturefacts and residues in
Hilpinen's sense are usually included in the ecofact
category.)



Randall Dipert (1993) proposes a slightly different, triadic
classification.


* Instruments--naturally occurring objects that have been
intentionally used for a purpose, but not modified, such as stones
used as hammers.
* Tools--intentionally modified instruments, such as stones
shaped and polished for use as hammers.
* Artifacts--tools intended to be recognized as tools, such as
claw hammers made from standard materials and with a standardized,
easily recognizable shape.



This continuum problem for artifacts is really just a version of a
well-known problem besetting classification schemes in the natural and
social sciences. The traditional assumption was that classification is
an exclusively ontological operation. What we are doing, it is often
said, is carving the world at its joints. On this assumption, a
continuum is a problem because it suggests that there are no joints to
guide our carving efforts. A continuum is thus incompatible with
classification schemes understood as grounded solely in objective
features of the world, and with essentialist understandings of natural
kinds. We can, of course, carve the continuum up any way we like, but
this must be understood as in part a pragmatic operation, not a
strictly ontological one reflecting only the fixed essences of things.
This problem has loomed large in discussions of natural kinds in
philosophy of science, as bothersome continua are increasingly
identified in both natural and social sciences. Muhammad Khalidi
(2013, Chapter 5) details cases in the chemical, biological,
physiological and social sciences where widely accepted kinds are
"fuzzy", or have graded membership, for instance. In
response, he advocates an account of natural kinds that incorporates
the influence of human interests and epistemic concerns, while still
insisting that these interests and concerns are constrained by
objective features of the world identifiable by science.
Khalidi's account joins a growing list of non-essentialist
accounts of natural kinds, according to which kinds are real, but
their reality does not require that they be defined in total isolation
from human beings, their activities, interests, epistemic projects,
pragmatic concerns, and so on (Dupre 1993; Boyd 1999; Reydon
2014; Kendig 2016).



Understood in this way, classification schemes such as those proposed
by Hilpinen and Dipert could, in principle, constitute a perfectly
adequate response to the continuum problem. It would, of course, be
nice to have a commonly accepted scheme in philosophy--or better
yet, a scheme shared with the other disciplines that study artifacts
and material culture. But even failing that, classification schemes
grounded in clear methodological considerations would be helpful, even
if the methodological considerations varied from scheme to scheme.
Unfortunately, it appears that the main consideration driving the
schemes proposed so far is merely the desire to shore up the
traditional ontological distinction between artifacts and naturally
occurring objects. This leaves the methodological challenge voiced by
Sperber and Miller unanswered. What do we need this distinction for?
Does it help us understand how objects function in human life and
culture, or does it actually hinder this understanding? If the latter,
would other distinctions serve us better? The continuum problem does
not, *pace* Sperber, prove that there are no good
methodological considerations in favor of maintaining the ontological
divide between artifacts and naturally occurring objects. But in light
of the "epistemological" (Reydon 2014) or
"practice" (Kendig 2016) turn in the recent literature on
natural kinds, it does show that we cannot assume that
"artifact" itself is a pure, natural kind, identifiable on
ontological grounds alone. In short, there is no guarantee that the
standard definition of "artifact" with which we started
this section expresses anything like a traditional essence. We are
thus left with more questions than answers in the matter of
definition.


## 2. Metaphysics



Discussions of the metaphysics of artifacts have typically
arisen only in broader investigative contexts in which they are
not the primary focus of attention. In particular, the metaphysics of
ordinary objects has generated a significant literature in recent
years, and the puzzles about existence around which it revolves do
apply to artifacts, but equally to the vast array of other ordinary
objects, like stones, stars, trees, jellyfish and deer. Similarly,
reflection on artifact kinds has been largely overshadowed by the vast
literature on natural kinds, and discussions of artifact function
exist on the periphery of the much more prominent discussions of
biological function. Finally, questions about the existence of
abstract artifacts have arisen in the context of investigations into
the ontology of works of art. We will take up these topics in
turn.


### 2.1 Do Artifacts Exist?



Skepticism about the existence of artifacts goes back at least to
Aristotle. For him, the primary existents are
substances--independent things on which all other things depend.
Individual things, such as horses or houses, are compounds of matter
and form, but it is not entirely clear whether the substance of the
thing is the form, the matter, or the compound (Shields 2022). That
said, Aristotle is clearly ambivalent as to whether artifacts have
what it takes. In the *Physics* (192b8-39), for instance,
he says that some things, such as chipmunks or geraniums, exist by
nature and that each such thing is a substance. He follows this up in
the *Metaphysics* (1043b15-25), saying that perhaps
*only* such things as exist by nature are substances, thus
implying that things made by art, such as pots or pincushions, are
not. Exactly why Aristotle thinks artifacts are not substances is not
entirely clear--he suggests different reasons in different places
(Katayama 1999, 18-19). But it is clear that he doubts that
they really exist in the full sense enjoyed by things that exist by
nature.



Aristotle's invidious ontological downgrading of artifacts fed
straight into 20th century trends in metaphysics that
tended to downgrade ordinary objects in general (Thomasson 2009). Even
after the baleful anti-metaphysical influence of logical positivism
waned, metaphysics took itself to be merely working out the details of
what the dominant scientific theories, particularly in physics and
biology, say exists. Since there is no science of artifacts, let alone
of sticks and stones and rivers, such ordinary objects had to be
eliminated from our ontologies. On the radical left fringe of the
eliminativist spectrum is a startling long list of theorists who deny
the existence of ordinary objects *tout court*, including even
living organisms and persons (for the list, see Korman
2015, 19-23). In the moderate middle are theorists such as
Trenton Merricks (2001), who denies the existence of artifacts and
other inanimate macrophysical objects, as well as living organisms,
with the exception of humans; Peter van Inwagen (1990), who denies the
existence of artifacts and other inanimate macrophysical objects, but
accepts the existence of living organisms, including humans; and Simon
Evnine (2016), who denies the existence of inanimate natural objects,
but accepts the existence of artifacts and living organisms.



The arguments for these varieties of eliminativism are themselves
various, but they revolve around what Daniel Korman
(2015, 4-7) calls debunking arguments. Why do we think that
ordinary objects exist? Only because they correspond to our human
needs and interests, as embodied in our biology and enshrined in our
cultural practices. But there is no good reason to think that the
objects we pick out in accordance with our needs and interests
correspond to the objects that actually exist in reality. Debunking
arguments go back to the very beginning of Western philosophy.
Parmenides declared that what truly is--Being, or the
One--cannot be multiple, changing and transient after the fashion
of ordinary objects. Plato followed up with the doctrine of the
eternal and unchanging Forms, which truly exist, and of which ordinary
objects are at best ontologically deficient copies. Thus the idea that
we have no good reason to think that ordinary objects exist is
entrenched in our metaphysical tradition.



On the other hand, *prima facie* grounds for rehabilitating
ordinary objects also have ancient roots in atomism, which holds that
macrophysical objects are composed of particles which, while multiple,
do meet the other criteria for true being laid down by Parmenides. On
the assumption that composition follows regular principles, then,
ordinary objects may be said to exist insofar as they are wholes
composed of existing proper parts. This brings us face to face with
what Peter van Inwagen (1990, 21 ff.) calls the Special
Composition Question--under what conditions *do* unified
wholes arise out of parts? Answering this question has turned out to
be far from simple, and has latterly given rise to mereology, a
special area of metaphysics devoted to investigating the principles of
composition. Most of the other main arguments against the existence of
artifacts and other ordinary objects reflect problems arising in the
course of these investigations. For example, there is the material
constitution problem. An artifact such as a cookie is made out of
dough. So everywhere there is a cookie there is a coincident lump of
(baked) dough, which shares all of its parts with the cookie. But this
coincidence violates our intuitions about the identity of ordinary
objects. Considerations of this sort have been used by van Inwagen
(1990, 124 ff.) and others to argue that there are no artifacts.
Cookie makers do not bring anything new into existence; they merely
move pre-existing elementary things around. Thus, while debunking
arguments show that we have no good reason to believe ordinary objects
*do* exist, mereological problems show that we have good
reasons to believe they do *not*.



A growing chorus of voices has been raised against this ontological
downgrading of ordinary objects, several of whom have been especially
concerned to rehabilitate artifacts. Lynne Rudder Baker's
*Metaphysics of Everyday Life* (2007) foregrounds artifacts as
paradigmatic examples of existing ordinary objects. Baker subscribes
to a constitution view, according to which material things are
non-reductively made up of other material things.



> 
> 
> The fundamental idea of constitution is this: when a thing of one
> primary kind is in certain circumstances, a thing of another primary
> kind--a new thing, with new causal powers--comes to exist.
> When an octagonal piece of metal is in circumstances of being painted
> red with white marks of the shape S-T-O-P, and is in an environment
> that has certain conventions and laws, a new thing--a traffic
> sign--comes into existence. (Baker 2007, 32)
> 
> 
> 



Importantly, for Baker artifacts are intention-dependent (ID)
objects--they cannot exist in the absence of beings with relevant
intentional states. Thus the cosmic ray striking a sheet of scrap
metal in the proverbial swamp and turning it red with white lettering
has not created any artifact at all, let alone a stop sign. Baker
builds the intentional states into the specification of the required
circumstances in terms of a relationship between the construction
materials and the intentions and knowledge of the constructor. For a
stop sign to exist, for example, it must be constructed from metal and
paint by someone who understands the function of stop signs, knows how
to construct one, intends to construct one to fulfill this function,
and is reasonably successful in executing her intentions
(2007, 53-55). This view puts Baker at odds with
Aristotle's view that only things with an internal principle of
movement truly exist, as well as with the common view that ID objects
do not truly exist. Both of these views are aimed at first
distinguishing natural from artificial objects and then downgrading
the latter. Baker argues that the distinction itself is suspect, both
in light of technologies such as genetic engineering and the natural
status of the beings with intentional states who create artifacts
(2007, 59-66). In short, the whole process of making
artifacts is internal to nature and cannot be legitimately considered
separate from it by those inclined to be judgmental in ontological
matters.



Simon Evnine (2016) argues for a version of hylomorphism that is very
similar to the constitution view espoused by Baker. Evnine abandons
traditional notions of form and focuses instead on the intertwining of
the causes that bring a thing into existence and make it the thing it
is. Artifacts thus take pride of place in his metaphysics, because, he
claims, they typically have a specifiable origin in the intentions of
a maker who chooses material and works it up in accordance with an
envisioned function and shape. Evnine's account of organisms as
existents rests on an analogy between this paradigmatic intentional
making and organic development. But he does not try to account for
non-living natural objects, whose existence he denies. On the other
hand, Evnine deploys his account of artifacts in an interesting way to
argue that actions are artifacts--artifactual events rather than
artifactual objects. Higher-level actions such as turning on a light
are governed by the agent's intention and constructed ultimately
out of the "matter" of basic, bodily actions.



Amie Thomasson (2007a; and for a succinct summary, 2009) takes a
different tack, arguing that the existence of artifacts and other
ordinary objects is established by the connection between our terms on
the one hand, and facts about the world on the other. On her view, the
meaning of our terms includes a specification of the conditions for
their application. If we then determine empirically that the
application conditions of a term are met, the thing to which it refers
exists. For example, "spoon" refers to a utensil
intentionally made by humans for the purposes of stirring, serving and
eating food, consisting of a shallow bowl with a long handle. A quick
check of any kitchen will assure you that these conditions are in fact
satisfied, and that spoons therefore exist. On the other hand,
"devil's tuning fork" refers to an implement
consisting of three cylindrical prongs on one end and two rectangular
prongs on the other, intentionally made by devils for the purpose of
tuning their instruments, one would suppose. Check the music studios
and the concert halls as thoroughly as you like, you will not find
these conditions satisfied. So devil's tuning forks do not
exist. Thomasson's approach does not privilege artifacts as
paradigmatic existents the way Baker's and Evnine's
accounts do. But she makes the intention-dependent status of artifacts
equally comprehensible, since the intentional states of makers figure
prominently in the application conditions of concepts.


### 2.2 Artifact Kinds



If artifacts do not exist, then the kinds into which we classify
them--pillow, book, painting, flowerpot--are not real kinds
on a par with natural kinds, such as oak, owl or anole. But questions
about the reality and nature of artifact kinds also arise for those
who do take artifacts to exist. As we have seen, these theorists
resist the objection that the mind-dependence of artifacts compromises
their ontological status. But this objection resurfaces with regard to
artifact kinds. The mind-dependence of artifacts implies, at a
minimum, that an account of artifact kinds will be very different from
an account of natural kinds. This implication is resisted by Crawford
Elder (2004; 2007), who seeks to establish the existence of
artifacts on the basis of a realist account of kinds. On Elder's
view, artifact kinds and many natural kinds are equally copied kinds,
and equally mind-independent. A copied kind is defined by a set of
properties that naturally cluster together--a distinctive shape
or make-up, a proper function established by a mechanism that copies
things of that shape on the basis of successful performance, and a
historically proper placement. For example, cats' whiskers are
distinctively shaped organs that are copied from cat to cat by a
biologically based reproductive mechanism because they help cats get
around in the dark by performing successfully as touch receptors
strategically located with respect to the cat's other bodily
parts. Similarly, floor lamps are distinctively shaped artifacts that
are copied from household to household by a socially based
reproductive mechanism because they help humans get around in the dark
by performing successfully as light sources strategically located with
respect to other household furniture. Human intentional states do, of
course, figure in the copying process for artifacts. However, Elder
argues:



> 
> 
> [C]reation does not begin with the artisan's intending what he
> does. Rather, the essential properties that his product will inherit
> stem from a history of function and of copying that began well before
> the artisan undertook his work. This history reaches forward through
> the artisan's motions--it shapes his shaping. Its existence
> and its efficacy are independent, largely or even entirely, of the
> artisan's will. (Elder 2004, 142-143)
> 
> 
> 



All copied kinds are thus natural, mind-independent kinds whose
clustered features we discover rather than invent.



One acknowledged problem with Elder's account is that many
erstwhile artifact kinds turn out not to be copied kinds. Neckties,
for example, do not qualify because they do not appear to have a
proper function (Elder 2004, 158-159). But his account does
have the virtue of drawing out useful analogies between natural kinds
and artifact kinds. A number of other accounts also focus on analogies
between (at least some) natural kinds and (at least some) artifact
kinds (Lowe 2014; Franssen & Kroes 2014). The underlying motive
for pushing this analogy, clearly, is the fear that artifact kinds are
not real if human intentional states and/or classificatory practices
are constitutive of what kinds there are.



Amie Thomasson does not share this fear. In a series of important
papers (2003; 2007b; 2014), she points out that realists
about kinds are not, in fact, forced to choose between showing that
artifact kinds can be understood on the mind-independent model of
natural kinds, or denying that artifact kinds are real. There is a
third option--denying that mind-independence is the touchstone of
reality. Thomasson then builds human intentions and their historical
connections into her account of artifact kinds.



> 
> 
> Necessarily, for all *x* and all artifactual kinds *K*,
> *x* is a *K* only if *x* is the product of a
> largely successful intention that (*Kx*), where one intends
> (*Kx*) only if one has a substantive concept of the nature of
> *K*s that largely matches that of some group of prior makers of
> *K*s (if there are any) and intends to realize that concept by
> imposing *K*-relevant features on the object. (Thomasson
> 2003, 600)
> 
> 
> 



Thus for Thomasson, human intentions and concepts are actually
constitutive of artifact kinds. Thomasson (2014) also objects to the
common assumption that concepts of artifact kinds revolve exclusively
around intended function. While it is true that in
English we often label artifact kinds in accordance with
function--flashlight, bedspread, pincushion, frying pan, and so
on--artifacts actually have an array of features that figure in
their concepts. These include structural or perceptible features, for
example, that are also often reflected in our terms--armchair,
tripod, zebra crossing (definitely not a function designation!), fork,
and so on. Most importantly for Thomasson, they also include normative
features concerned with how that kind of artifact is to be treated or
regarded. Although sponges and paper towels can both be used to wipe
up spills, it is normal to dispose of the paper towel, but to clean
the sponge and reuse it.



A distinct approach to artifact kinds is proposed by Thomas Reydon
(2014). He points out that the nature of natural kinds is currently in
play in philosophy of science. Their mind-independence is
traditionally predicated on their having essences. But essentialism
ran into trouble when Darwin showed that species--up to that
point the very paradigm of natural kinds--are historically fluid
and have no clear boundaries. Similar problems have now been
recognized even in the kinds of chemistry and physics (Khalidi 2013).
Nevertheless, grouping natural objects into kinds does license useful
inferences and ground successful explanations. This has led to what
Reydon calls an "epistemological turn".



> 
> 
> The principal criteria for being a natural kind used to be
> metaphysical: a kind is a natural kind if and only if it really exists
> in the world...independently of human consciousness, human
> interests, and human practices, and is associated with a particular
> kind essence.... On the alternative approach the principal
> criteria for being a natural kind no longer are metaphysical but
> epistemological: what counts is being useful in human
> epistemic practices, such as inference and explanation, by
> corresponding in some way (which is still to be explicated)
> to the state of affairs in nature. (Reydon 2014, 132)
> 
> 
> 



Rather than assimilating artifact kinds to natural kinds by showing
that artifacts are actually mind-independent in some way, as Elder and
others have tried to do, the epistemological turn suggests that since
natural kinds were never mind-independent to begin with, there is in
principle no barrier to a unified account of artifact and natural
kinds.



Finally, we should note that questions have been raised about the
legitimacy of the kind--or perhaps more precisely, the
category--"artifact" itself. We have already touched
on this in
 Section 1
 above, in the context of the definitional issues raised by the
continuum problem. This discussion clearly reflects Reydon's
epistemological turn in that it foregrounds methodological
considerations and lets the ontological chips fall where they may. We
will discuss methodological issues in
 Section 3.


### 2.3 Artifact Functions



Function is a salient feature of artifacts. Clearly there would be no
good reason to keep so many of them around unless they did something
for us. Function is also a salient feature of biological traits.
Accounts of biological function, which now comprise a large
literature, have inspired many accounts of artifact function. But
unlike organisms, artifacts are made to serve human purposes, so human
intentional states must be considered. Accounts of artifact function
can be usefully categorized in terms of the role they give to
intentions in the establishment of functions (Preston 2009; Houkes
& Vermaas 2010). At one end of the spectrum are accounts that
revolve around human intentions, while at the other end are accounts
that focus on non-intentional factors; in between are a variety of
accounts that mix intentional and non-intentional factors in various
proportions.



Karen Neander (1991) distinguishes artifact function sharply from
biological function. Natural selection acting over the long course of
evolutionary history establishes specific effects of biological traits
as their functions, in virtue of the reproduction of those traits for
those effects. For example, the wings of birds are the result of eons
of selection for their effect as airfoils. In contrast, intentional
human selection, acting with knowledge and foresight, establishes
specific effects of artifacts as their functions immediately, without
any reference to a history of reproduction for those effects.



> 
> 
> It is enough, in the case of intentional selection, if the designer
> believes or hopes that the artifact will have the desired effect and
> selects it for that purpose. (Neander 1991, 462)
> 
> 
> 



For example, an individual who designs a hammer, or who uses the heel
of her shoe to pound in a nail, believing these items to have the
capacity to deliver a hard blow and intending to use that effect for
her purposes, endows them with the relevant function forthwith. John
Searle (1995) calls such artifact functions "agentive"
functions to distinguish them from the "non-agentive"
functions of biological traits. Searle also distinguishes a special
sub-category of agentive functions which he terms "status"
functions. These are related in a relatively arbitrary way to the
physical structure of the artifact. Money, for example, runs the gamut
from gold ingots to bitcoin. Its functions--medium of exchange,
measure of value, and so on--are imposed on these physical
bearers by our collective acceptance of them as money. According to
Searle, the intentional states constituting this collective acceptance
create an "institutional fact" that would not exist
without collective human agency. Status functions thus illustrate not
only the creative capacity of human intentionality already
foregrounded in Neander's account, but also its typically
collective nature in the case of artifact function. Searle supplies an
account of collective intentionality to underwrite this feature. Other
authors who subscribe to intentionalist theories of artifact function
include Randall Dipert (1993), Peter McLaughlin (2001), Lynne Rudder
Baker (2007), and Simon Evnine (2016).



Ruth Millikan (1984) offers a general theory of function that, in the
case of artifacts, mixes intentional and non-intentional elements. Her
main interest is in proper functions--what a biological trait or
artifact is supposed to do, and is malfunctioning if it cannot do. On
Millikan's view, what she calls direct proper functions, whether
biological or artifactual, are established by a history of selection
and reproduction for the effect constituting the function. So what is
essential for the establishment of an artifact's function is
whether or not its ancestors--artifacts of that kind--were
reproduced for that effect. This is what the artifact is supposed to
do, even if it is not able to do it because of damage or an
unfavorable environment. Thus far Millikan's account is
non-intentional, for the role of human intentional states is merely
one factor in the implementation of the reproduction process. However,
the other half of Millikan's account concerns what she calls
derived proper functions. These are functions that are established by
something that has the direct proper function of producing something
else to accomplish a purpose. Millikan's favored example of
biological derived proper function is a novel shade of brown sported
by a chameleon. It has no history of selection and reproduction for
the effect of camouflaging the chameleon, and yet we want to say that
that is its proper function. And we can say so, according to Millikan,
because the color-alteration mechanism possessed by chameleons has the
direct proper function of changing chameleons' skin color to
camouflage them by matching their surroundings. Thus this novel shade
of brown does have the *derived* proper function of
camouflaging the chameleon. Derived proper functions in the realm of
artifacts bring intention back to the fore. On Millikan's view,
intentional states have evolutionarily established direct proper
functions. The direct proper function of intentions is to produce
something else to accomplish whatever purpose the intention
incorporates. Thus, if you intend to produce a can opener, the
execution of your intention brings into existence a device having the
derived proper function of opening cans. Even if this device works in
a completely novel way, and even if it is not capable of performing as
envisioned, opening cans is still what it is supposed to do. Usually,
the direct and derived proper functions of artifacts coincide--in
the case of a standard can opener, for instance, we have both a
history of selection and reproduction and a current intention to
reproduce yet another can opener. But in the case of novel prototypes,
especially, it is intention alone that establishes the (derived)
proper function.



Wybo Houkes and Pieter Vermaas (Houkes & Vermaas 2004; 2010;
Vermaas & Houkes 2003) also have a mixed theory, although
intentionalist factors predominate, in contrast to Millikan's
focus on non-intentionalist history of reproduction. Their approach is
to derive a theory of artifact function from a theory of artifact use
and design.



> 
> 
> On our theory, an artifact function is a capacity, supposed or actual,
> which has a preferential status in the context of certain actions and
> beliefs. It is therefore a highly relational property, which
> supervenes on both the actual physical makeup of an artifact and on
> the beliefs and actions of human agents, designers as well as users.
> (Houkes & Vermaas 2004, 67)
> 
> 
> 



Houkes and Vermaas focus on the use plan formulated by designers as
establishing the function of the artifact in the first instance. This
is the predominant intentionalist element in their account. But on
their view, this use plan must be supported by a justification that
the plan will realize the function, and this requires knowledge of the
causal roles of the physicochemical capacities of the artifact.
Through this required justification the actual physical structure of
the artifact constrains the intentions articulated in the use plan.
This is a non-intentionalist element. In addition, they require a
historical element in the form of the communication of the use plan
from designer to user and subsequently from user to user. They refer
to this element as "evolutionary", in an apparent
reference to cultural evolution, but clearly this element, too, is
primarily intentional since the evolution is carried out in a series
of intentional communications. Houkes and Vermaas refer to their
theory as the ICE (Intention, Causal role, Evolution) theory of
artifact function. Other mixed theories include those of Paul
Griffiths (1993) and Philip Kitcher (1993).



At the lonelier, non-intentionalist end of the spectrum is Beth
Preston's (1998; 2013) account. Her initial concern is to
advance a pluralist theory of artifact function according to which
artifacts have both proper functions and what Preston calls system
functions. For example, the proper function of plates is to hold food
for serving or eating. But they function equally well as saucers for
potted plants, or in a stack to weight down tofu or eggplant slices to
extract the moisture. For proper function, Preston relies on
Millikan's account of direct proper function, but without the
added element of derived proper function that brings intention back
in. For system function, she relies on Robert Cummins' (1975)
theory of biological function, according to which function is
established by the causal role a component plays in a system. Neither
Millikan's nor Cummins' account is intrinsically
intentionalist, since they are designed to fit both the biological and
the artifactual cases. Preston resists reformulating them in
intentionalist terms, while acknowledging that in the artifact case
human intentions and other intentional states do play a role in
implementing the history of selective reproduction and the system
context, respectively. In support of this resolutely
non-intentionalist stance, Preston argues that human intentions do not
arise in a vacuum, but are reproduced in and through the process by
which material culture, with its myriad of functional artifacts, is
reproduced. Intentions to make plates are reproduced in plate cultures
as surely as the plates themselves; and only in cultures with both
potted plants and plates can intentions to use plates as pot
saucers form.



> 
> 
> The only viable view is one that sees human purposes and the proper
> functions of items of material culture indissolubly linked in patterns
> of use and reproduction. Thus, it no longer seems reasonable to ask
> which came first, the purpose or the proper function. Both are
> produced and reproduced through the self-same social process. (Preston
> 2013, 206)
> 
> 
> 



Preston is joined here by Crawford Elder (2004), whose account of
copied kinds, as we noted above, similarly characterizes human
intentions as themselves dependent on the copying process rather than
initiating and controlling it.



The theories discussed in this section encounter a number of important
problems in accounting for function phenomena in the artifact realm.
One such problematic phenomenon is the distinction between proper and
non-proper functions. This does occur in the biological
realm--pigeon beaks did not evolve to peck buttons for a food
reward, for example--but it is relatively rare. In material
culture, it is ubiquitous. Humans are just very good at adopting
whatever artifact will accomplish their purposes, regardless of its
proper function. Stop a random person in the street and ask--she
will have a story. Intentionalist approaches have more difficulty
making this distinction, because for these views human intentions are
the only mechanism for establishing functions, and this elides the
distinction unless some difference can be discerned in the intentions
themselves. Authors who have discussed this issue recently include
Wybo Houkes and Pieter Vermaas (2010), Beth Preston (2013) and Simon
Evnine (2016). Another problem is accounting for malfunction. Just as
any theory of representation must account for misrepresentation, any
theory of function must say something about cases of failure to
perform, and whether or not that failure is a malfunction or something
else. Addressing this issue depends to some extent on the distinction
between proper and non-proper functions, because malfunction only
seems an appropriate designation in the case of failure to perform a
proper function--failure to do what the artifact is supposed to
do, in other words. This issue is especially important for the
philosophy of technology and engineering side of the artifact debates,
where understanding the epistemology of problem solving and innovation
depends in part on understanding failure to function and how to learn
from and deal with it. Authors who have covered this issue include
Neander (1995), Baker (2007), Franssen (2006; 2009), Houkes and
Vermaas (2010) and Kroes (2012).



A third problem is how to account for the functions--if
any--of novel prototypes. Non-intentional accounts have more
difficulty in this case, for a truly novel prototype has no history of
selection and reproduction; and if it does not work, as many
prototypes in fact do not, then function established in terms of
systemic causal role or physicochemical capacities is not possible
either. This problem is one of the main motivations for
Millikan's (1984) introduction of derived proper function, since
designer intention seems to be the only way unsuccessful novel
prototypes could acquire any kind of function at all. The
non-intentionalist then is caught between biting the
bullet--unsuccessful novel prototypes just do not have
functions--or introducing an *ad hoc* intentionalist
element. This issue has been canvassed by Preston
(1998; 2003; 2013), Millikan (1999), Vermaas and Houkes
(2003) and Kroes (2012). A related problem is how to account for
so-called phantom functions (Preston 2013)--the functions of
artifacts that are constitutionally incapable of ever fulfilling them.
Talismans to ensure fertility, for example, are now widely believed in
Western culture to have no efficacy, but it is difficult to escape the
intuition that ensuring fertility is nevertheless their proper
function. Here again, it is the non-intentionalist who is caught
flatfooted. Although artifacts like fertility talismans are indeed
reproduced for a purpose, the standard requirement for establishing
proper function is that the artifact be selected for reproduction on
the basis of successful performance. Similarly, function established
by systemic causal role requires that the artifact actually perform
the relevant causal role. Worse yet, the option of just biting the
bullet and agreeing that such artifacts have no functions is nowhere
near as plausible as in the case of unsuccessful novel prototypes
because of the prevalence of talismans, amulets, religious artifacts,
inefficacious medicines and supplements, and the like. Authors who
have addressed this issue include Griffiths (1993), Preston
(1998; 2013), Thomasson (2009), Parsons (2016) and Holm
(2017).


### 2.4 Abstract Artifacts



Many works of art are typical artifacts, ontologically no more or less
mysterious than hats or hacksaws. Vermeer's *Girl with a
Pearl Earring* has extraordinary aesthetic qualities, but
otherwise it is just a concrete, spatiotemporal object, created by
someone and straightforwardly subject to change and destruction. Not
so with Amy Beach's *Gaelic Symphony*, which we hesitate
to identify with its performances, singly or collectively, and which
therefore does not appear to be located in time and space. However, it
does purport to have a creator, and may perhaps be destroyed if all
traces of its performances and scores are wiped away. A symphony is a
so-called repeatable work of art, that is, a work with multiple
instances. Performance arts of all kinds fall into this category, but
so do cast sculptures, limited edition prints, art photographs, films,
and the like. So understanding the ontology of repeatable works is a
central task for philosophy of art.



The initial difficulty is that such works do not fit neatly into the
standard ontological bifurcation between concrete, spatiotemporal
objects such as hats and hacksaws and abstract, eternal objects such
as numbers and sets. Like concrete objects, but unlike abstract
objects, repeatable works of art appear to be created and may change
or be destroyed. Unlike concrete objects, but like abstract objects,
they do not appear to be located in space and time. Amie Thomasson
(1999; 2004; 2006) sought to resolve this difficulty by proposing an
intermediate ontological category of abstract artifacts--abstract
in that they are not located in space and time; artifactual in that
they are intentionally created and can be destroyed. Thomasson
originally proposed this new category as part of her theory of
fictional characters, but she noted its usefulness to the analysis of
the literary works those characters inhabit, repeatable works of art
in general, and perhaps other social objects as well. (For application
to repeatable works of art, see the essays in *Art and Abstract
Objects* (Mag Uidhir 2012). Applications to other social objects
include software (Irmak 2012), establishments (Korman 2020), and
normativity (Fruge 2022).)



However, further difficulties beset the positing of abstract
artifacts. It is commonly thought that abstract objects are not just
non-spatiotemporal, but non-causal. Our causal commerce is with their
instances, not with the abstract objects themselves. But this makes it
hard to understand how abstract objects could possibly be created.
Erik Satie could certainly create an instance of his
*Gymnopedies* by playing it on his piano, but it is
unclear in what sense he could be the author of this musical work as
an abstract object separate from its instances. According to Jerrold
Levinson (1980), the last decades of the 20th century saw a
near consensus that musical works are abstract objects of a more
familiar sort--structural types that exist eternally and without
change, independent of their instances in the causally governed,
spatiotemporal realm. A leading objection to this consensus is that
composers cannot then bring their works into existence, contrary to
common sense. So the music ontologist faces a dilemma--give up on
the idea that musical works are abstract structural types, or explain
how the composer can reasonably be said to create musical works even
though the abstract structural types that comprise them are already in
existence. This difficulty generalizes to other repeatable types of
artworks that are held to be abstract objects. But most importantly,
characterizing repeatable artworks as abstract artifacts does not
allow the ontologist to escape this difficulty. Abstract artifacts do
not belong to the causal realm of space and time any more than their
eternal and changeless cousins do. So simply saying that they are
artifacts, and therefore created and destroyed like all other
artifacts, does not by itself explain how this creation and
destruction is possible.



Responses run the gamut. Julian Dodd (2000) bites the bullet and
argues that musical works are discovered, not created. Levinson (1980)
famously proposes that composers create musical works by selecting
among and indicating pre-existing abstract sound structures and
preferred performance means. In western classical music, for example,
these indications are embodied in the written score for the work,
which guides the production of instances. However, abstract artifacts,
by hypothesis, do not pre-exist the creative acts of authors, so they
cannot be created by Levinson's selection-and-indication
process. A popular alternative involves the metaphysical relationship
of existential dependence. On this view, repeatable works of art have
a dependence base, typically consisting of an author's mental
and physical acts which bring an initial instance of the work into
existence, subsequent copies of that instance that sustain the work,
and an audience capable of appreciating and interpreting those
instances. The work itself is an abstract artifact, dependent on, but
existing separately from, these acts and instances. It begins when
they begin and ends when they all cease or are destroyed. Nurbay Irmak
(2021) argues that existential dependence allows for a non-causal type
of creation. The artist engages in causal relations with concrete
objects and by so doing non-causally creates the dependent abstract
artifact. Lee Walters (2013), on the other hand, argues that some
abstract objects can enter into causal relationships, so the process
of creating an existentially dependent abstract artifact might
conceivably qualify as ordinary causal creation.



These difficulties have prompted some philosophers to avoid the moves
that generate them. An early such attempt is Guy Rohrbaugh's
(2003) view that works of art are not abstract objects at all, but
rather historical individuals--non-physical entities
ontologically dependent on a physical series of historically and
causally linked physical objects. For example, a photograph is a
non-physical entity dependent on its "embodiments" in a negative
and subsequent prints. In a more recent proposal, Christy Mag
Uidhir (2013) argues that works of art must have authors, but that
neither discovery, nor indication of abstract structures, nor
existential dependence satisfies the requirements for authorship. He
concludes that repeatable works of art cannot be abstract objects of
any kind, but must rather be ordinary concrete objects. Their apparent
repeatability does not mean that they are instances of an abstract
work, but only that they bear relevant similarity to one another. In a
related vein, Allan Hazlett (2012) claims that there are no repeatable
artworks. If there were, he says, they would have to be abstract
objects. But abstract objects have all their intrinsic properties
essentially, whereas artworks typically do not. For example, Alvin
Ailey's major work, *Revelations*, premiered as a 10
section work lasting an hour, but evolved into a half hour long piece
in three sections. So, clearly, many of its original properties were
not essential to it. Hazlett concludes that apparent repetitions are
not instances of an abstract object. They are either separate, similar
artworks, or copies of an original.



The discussion of abstract artifacts has been largely confined to the
ontology of art. But as some of the participants have noted (e.g.,
Levinson 1980, 21-22), repeatable works are not confined to
works of art. This is particularly clear for named artifacts such as
Chanel No. 5, the Ford F-150, Campbell's tomato soup, Earl Grey
tea, the Hepplewhite chair, or the Washington quarter. It is possible
to see each bottle of Chanel No. 5 or each quarter not as a
distinctive artifact in its own right, but as an instance of an
abstract artifact--Chanel No. 5 *tout court*, or the
Washington quarter. Apart from marketing and branding concerns, what
does the naming of such ordinary artifacts accomplish? It highlights
their standardization, and often designates the entity responsible for
maintaining it--Ford, in the case of the F-150, for instance. But
standardization is a virtually universal feature of human artifacts,
from the Acheulean handaxe to the Apple MacBook Air. There are
vanishingly few artifacts that are unique in the way non-repeatable
artworks like paintings are supposed to be. Failed prototypes that
were never reproduced might be an example. This means that we are
potentially swimming in abstract artifacts, with all the philosophical
difficulties that would entail. This, in turn, highlights views
opposed to the positing of abstract artifacts, which are more
plausible in the case of everyday artifacts. We resist thinking of
performances of Beach's *Gaelic Symphony* as separate,
relevantly similar artifacts because we are used to thinking of
symphonies as unique, individual works. But the Washington
quarter does not seem like a work in the same sense, and there is thus
less reason to resist the idea that individual quarters are just
relevantly similar artifacts produced by a copying process managed by
the United States Mint. In this regard, we might consider that the
notion of the work, functioning as a regulatory concept for the arts,
is arguably neither universal nor of ancient lineage, even in the
western tradition (Goehr 1993). In short, the time may be ripe
for the discussion of abstract artifacts to be expanded to cover
artifacts in general, perhaps with different outcomes than in its
native context.


## 3. Epistemology



The metaphysics of artifacts is a fairly well delineated set of
discussions, carried out by a fairly cohesive group of philosophers.
In contrast, the epistemology of artifacts is more interdisciplinary
in nature, ranging over anthropology, archaeology, cognitive science,
and psychology, in addition to philosophy. Within philosophy it runs
the gamut from environmental philosophy to philosophy of mind.
 Section 3.1
 returns in more detail to the methodological considerations already
broached in
 Section 2.2.
 Section 3.2 takes up issues concerning artifacts as objects of
knowledge. Finally,
 Section 3.3
 covers issues arising in studies of cognition in which artifacts are
presented as playing significant and sometimes controversial roles in
cognitive processes themselves.


### 3.1 Methodology



Reydon's identification of an epistemological turn in our
understanding of kinds and categories leads to a new question about
the category "artifact". Rather than only asking whether
it carves the world at a joint, we can also ask: Is it serving our
epistemic purposes well? A number of authors have argued that
"artifact" is methodologically counterproductive. Dan
Sperber (2007, 136-137) claims that it is not a useful
category for the purposes of a naturalistic social science.



> 
> 
> I have tried to cast doubt on the idea that a theoretically useful
> notion of artifact can be built around its usual prototypes:
> bracelets, jars, hammers, and other inert objects, or that it can be
> defined in a more systematic way.... There is no good reason why
> a naturalistic social science should treat separately, or even give
> pride of place to, cultural productions that are both more clearly
> intended for a purpose and more thoroughly designed by humans, that
> is, to prototypical artifacts. (Sperber 2007, 137)
> 
> 
> 



Sperber's main argument for this conclusion, as we noted in
 Section 1,
 is based on the continuum problem. But Sperber also suggests that in
focusing on paradigmatic artifacts as the basis for our
categorization, we are allowing ourselves to be epistemologically
disadvantaged by "a doubly obsolete industrial-age revival of a
Paleolithic categorization" (2007, 136). In the
Paleolithic, before there were any domesticates other than dogs, the
(few) technologies people used in their daily lives *were*
paradigmatic artifacts--stone tools, baskets, beads, and so on.
So, Sperber speculates, we evolved a psychological disposition to
classify things in accordance with the predominance of such artifacts.
We then retained this disposition right through the Neolithic
transition to agriculture 12,000 years ago, which made biological
artifacts (as Sperber calls domesticates) proportionally the most
common type of artifact in human experience until the Industrial
transition of only a couple of centuries ago. This is the first sense
in which our "artifact" category is obsolete. Second,
Sperber argues, information technology has increasingly contributed to
our environment artifacts that would have astonished Aristotle with
their ability to act on their own, beyond any intention their creators
may have. Simultaneously, biotechnology has made impressing our
intentions on our biological artifacts increasingly effective. These
countervailing trends further reduce the dominance of erstwhile
paradigmatic artifacts in our lives. This is the second sense in which
our "artifact" category is obsolete. In short, Sperber
seems to suggest, if we cannot shake the Paleolithic urge to center
the "artifact" category on the paradigmatic bracelets and
jars, we should jettison the category altogether, for the sake of an
epistemologically adequate social science.



Beth Preston (2013, 4-7) declines to use the term
"artifact", opting instead for the more open-ended
"material culture". The initial problem she identifies is
that phenomena of interest from the point of view of human interaction
with the environment do not divide naturally into interactions with
artifacts and interactions with other sorts of things. We noted an
example of this in
 Section 1--intentionally
 made paths, which do qualify as artifacts, are used in the same way
as unintentionally made paths. It thus seems methodologically
wrongheaded to rule the unintentionally made path out of consideration
on a definitional technicality. Similarly, residues such as sawdust,
whey, or fingerprints often enter into human practices in important
ways, but a focus on artifacts as traditionally defined may leave
these phenomena out of account as well. Preston also argues that it is
precisely the central concepts in a field of investigation that should
be left open-ended, on pain of epistemic distortion of the results.
For example, defining "mind" very strictly might have
ruled the extended mind debate out in advance.



Steven Vogel (2003; 2015) argues that no good sense can be made
of the artifact-nature distinction, making it unfit for the purposes
of environmental philosophy. His argument unrolls against the backdrop
of a longstanding controversy in environmental philosophy about the
value of ecological restoration--the practice of restoring areas
damaged by mining, industrial waste and the like to something as close
as possible to the condition they were in before the damage was done.
The ontological status of such sites has been challenged on the
grounds that such restoration does not actually restore nature but
rather creates an artifact (Katz 1997). Worse yet, this artifact is
passed off as nature, so it is a fake (Elliot 1997). This casts doubt
on the ethical and political value of ecological restoration as an
environmental practice. Vogel responds by questioning the unspoken
assumption that environmental philosophy is about nature, and
environmental activism about protecting nature from human activity. He
argues that nature conceived as pristine and independent in this way
does not exist--certainly not now that human activity is global
in its effects, as Bill McKibben (1989) noted long ago, but in
principle, since humans, like all other living things, change their
environment simply by living in it. On Vogel's view,
environmental philosophy is about just that--the environment,
both built and not-so-built, and what we should do to ensure that it
is the environment we want and need, not only for ourselves but for
other beings as well.



The important point for our purposes, though, is that Vogel's
post-nature environmental philosophy rests on a full-throated
rejection of the nature-artifact categorization. He begins with the
claim that our concepts of nature--already multiple, and not
always carefully distinguished--are riddled with
antinomy-generating ambiguities. The epistemological backwash leaves
us mired in nostalgia, unable to see and address environmental
problems as they actually exist. In particular, we are unable to see
that ecological restoration does not produce artifacts by the
traditional definition, since restored areas are designed precisely to
escape our designs and outrun our intentions. They are thus
"wild" in a perfectly straightforward sense. Furthermore,
Vogel argues, all human productions, including artifacts, are wild in
this sense. Rather than focusing on unintentional creations, as
Preston and Sperber tend to do, Vogel emphasizes the ways in which
artifacts outrun all our creative intentions.



> 
> 
> Building an artifact requires black boxes all the way down: *to
> design and build anything requires presupposing a whole set of
> processes that one does not design*, and whose operation beyond
> one's understanding and intention is necessary for building to
> take place. There is a *gap*, in the construction of every
> artifact, between the intention with which the builder acts and the
> consequences of her acts, a gap that is ineliminable and indeed
> constitutive of what it is to construct something, and in this gap
> resides something like what I earlier called wildness. (Vogel
> 2015, 113)
> 
> 
> 



Thus the traditional definition of
"artifact"--something intentionally made for a
purpose--while true as far as it goes, merely skates over the
surface, leaving us at an epistemological disadvantage with regard to
the full range and depth of the phenomena.


### 3.2 Knowing Artifacts



Vogel's position on environmental ethics resonates in an
interesting way with a much earlier dispute about
reference--specifically, about whether our capacity to refer to
different kinds of artifacts is grounded in a definite description of
what being a member of that kind requires, or rather in a historical
connection to a "baptismal" event in which someone slapped
a label on something and declared that label henceforth applicable to
things of that sort. Hilary Putnam (1975) famously favors the
baptismal account for both natural kinds and artifact kinds. Steven
Schwartz (1978) challenges Putnam's account in the case of
artifacts. He agrees with Putnam that the "baptismal"
account is correct for natural kinds, because they have hidden natures
to which we are not necessarily privy. Thus if we are to refer to
natural objects reliably at all, it cannot be by way of definite
description. But artifacts, Schwartz says, have publicly accessible
natures based on form and function, so reference to them is grounded
in description rather than a baptismal event. Amie Thomasson
(2003; 2007b) carves out a nuanced position based on her view
that the intentions and concepts of human makers are constitutive of
artifact kinds
 (Section 2.2
 above). If so, then some makers are in an epistemically privileged
position with regard to given artifacts, and so do refer to them in
virtue of having a substantive concept of what being an artifact of
that kind involves. Thomasson acknowledges that most speakers are not
in this epistemically privileged position. Users are not, and even
many who qualify as makers in the causal sense--workers on a
production line, for instance--may not be. So Thomasson's
view, unlike Schwartz's, is not a return to a purely descriptive
theory of reference for artifact terms, but rather a hybrid theory.
Hilary Kornblith (2007) argues against Thomasson that she has still
not demonstrated any essential connection between makers'
substantive concepts of artifacts and reference. On the one hand, in
cases where a type of artifact is no longer used for the purpose the
maker intended, the users' concept would seem decisive. On the
other hand, having the concept is arguably the result of familiarity
with the artifact rather than any special semantic capacity enjoyed by
makers. Similarly, Kornblith (1980) argues against Schwartz that the
function of artifacts is not necessarily accessible--a problem
faced frequently by archaeologists, for instance--and thus that
even in cases of objects where the form and function are familiar, it
is not this familiarity that grounds the ability to refer. The
baptismal account of reference therefore must apply to both artifacts
and natural objects, just as Putnam said. Such semantic parity between
artifacts and natural objects, which rejects any privilege for
makers' intentions, echoes Vogel's view that artifacts and
natural objects are equally "wild", because artifacts
outrun their makers' intentions in practice, just as surely as
natural objects outrun human intentions in principle.



Much of the epistemology of artifacts is, in the first instance, the
province of cognitive psychology, not philosophy. Artifact kinds, for
instance, can be approached from the side of psychology rather than
metaphysics, yielding theories about the psychological mechanisms by
means of which we group artifacts together, apart from any question of
whether these groupings represent reality (Malt & Sloman 2007a).
In an influential article, Paul Bloom (1996) argues that we cannot
categorize artifacts based on form, use, or function. Form and use are
both too variable to be reliable. Beanbag chairs do not look much like
other chairs, and even if every flatiron in existence were currently
being used as a doorstop, we would not want to categorize them as
doorstops. Experiments show that even intended function is neither
necessary nor sufficient for categorization (Malt & Johnson 1992).
Vary the form of something sufficiently, and people will decline to
categorize it as a chair even if it is made to be sat on. On the other
hand, present them with something that looks like a chair but is made
to be a plant stand, and they will still categorize it as a chair. In
response, Bloom proposes an intentional-historical theory, according
to which categorization of artifacts depends on our being able to
infer that an artifact was successfully made with the intention that
it belong to a particular category. Form and use are good grounds for
such inferences, and this explains our intuition that these factors
have something to do with how we categorize artifacts. So if something
looks like a chair and we regularly observe people sitting on it, we
reasonably infer it was made with the intention that it be a chair,
and we categorize it accordingly. (Bloom's view is clearly
ancestral to Amie Thomasson's account of artifact kinds
 (Section 2.2),
 but he is concerned only to explain how we group artifacts, and does
not claim, as Thomasson does, that makers' intentions and
concepts are ontologically constitutive of artifact kinds.) Barbara
Malt and Eric Johnson (1998) criticize Bloom for failing to make clear
either why we would need to resort to creator's intention to
categorize artifacts, or exactly how we might assess that intention.
More recently, Malt and Steven Sloman (2007a; 2007b) have argued
that the kind of essentialist approach represented by Bloom's
theory is misguided, and have proposed an alternative, pragmatic
approach. In a series of experiments, they show that artifact
categorization is sensitive to communicative goals in specific
situations. Creators' intentions are important with regard to
some goals and situations; unimportant with regard to others. If this
approach is on the right track, artifact kinds are not psychologically
stable or clearly demarcated groupings. Moreover, this raises the
possibility that "categorization" itself is not a
psychological natural kind. It may be that this label is used for what
is actually a heterogeneous collection of processes.



Developmental issues with regard to our concepts of
"artifact" and specific kinds of artifacts also loom large
in cognitive psychology. As philosophers might anticipate, the
underlying general issue is between empiricist and nativist approaches
to concept acquisition. But the now vast experimental literature on
child development means that theories in this area are both numerous
and highly sophisticated. An empiricist-oriented theory that stands
out is Jean Mandler's (2004; 2007) comprehensive perceptual
meaning analysis view, according to which children construct abstract
image schemas on the basis of their perceptual experience, especially
their experience of motion. Since artifacts and animals move in
characteristically different ways, the first level of differentiation
these image schemas provide is vague, global concepts of these two
types of objects. Mandler holds that there is no good reason to think
these concepts are innate, nor is there any good reason to think that
the perceptual meaning analysis mechanisms that produce them are
domain specific. All that is innate, on her view, is a domain-general
mechanism that enables the child to analyze her perceptual input.
Mandler's work also indicates that artifacts may be first
differentiated into indoor and outdoor, and only then into more
specific kinds such as furniture and kitchen utensils, on the one
hand, and vehicles and buildings, on the other. The nativist
alternative to Mandler's theory is best represented by Susan
Carey's equally comprehensive "core cognition"
theory. Carey (2009, 194-196) has a characteristically
nativist critique of Mandler. On the face of it, Mandler's image
schemas represent features of motion and the paths motions describe
through space. However, Carey argues, there is no explanation of how
the child gets from these representations to a representation of
agency, for example. No matter how distinctive the motions of animals,
they do not by themselves yield concepts of intention, attention, or
goal-directedness. On Carey's view, these concepts must be
innate in the form of "core knowledge" (Spelke 2000), or
"core cognition", as Carey prefers to call it in her more
recent work. Core cognition is characterized by innate,
domain-specific mechanisms for the analysis of perceptual input,
designed by natural selection to construct domain-specific
representations of the world, such as intention in the agent domain,
or causality in the object domain. Both of these domains of core
cognition are essential for the development of artifact concepts,
because on Carey's view (Kelemen & Carey 2007) we
conceptualize artifacts as objects that have been intentionally
designed to carry out a specific function. The developmental issue,
then, boils down to the question of whether we can construct artifact
concepts with only a single, domain-general mechanism for analyzing
perceptual input, or whether we need at least two domain-specific
mechanisms with quite different output.


### 3.3 Thinking and Acting With Artifacts



Artifacts are not only objects of knowledge; they are also involved in
cognition itself. No one disputes that humans use artifacts in their
cognitive practices--we do our sums on paper or with electronic
devices; and memory aids from individual grocery lists to monuments
enshrining cultural memory are ubiquitous. But in recent years a
loosely interconnected collection of approaches has characterized
artifacts as much more intimately involved in these processes than
mere use might suggest. Rather than trying to sort out the complex
family resemblances among embodied, enactive, situated, distributed
and extended approaches to cognition (Sutton 2006; Wilson & Clark
2009), we can more profitably focus on some representative studies of
the way artifacts contribute to cognition in this family of
views.



In a seminal paper, Andy Clark and David Chalmers (1998) propose the
radical thesis that the mind extends beyond the brain and the body,
right out into the environment. In their now famous illustration, two
characters, Inga and Otto, hear about an interesting exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art. Inga is neurotypical. She recalls the address of
the museum and travels there. Otto, on the other hand, has
Alzheimer's disease. Because he forgets things so easily, he
maintains a notebook with the addresses of places he is wont to visit.
He looks up the address of the museum and travels there. The moral of
this illustration is the so-called Parity Principle.



> 
> 
> If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a
> process which, *were it done in the head*, we would have no
> hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that
> part of the world is (so we claim) part of the cognitive process.
> (Clark & Chalmers 1998, 8)
> 
> 
> 



This claim is intended as a thesis in the metaphysics of mind, but it
functions equally well as a thesis about the epistemic status of
artifacts. In Otto's case--and it is clear Clark and
Chalmers intend it not as an exceptional case, but as a particularly
striking instance of a commonplace one--the notebook is cognitive
in its own right. It is an essential element of a widely individuated
cognitive process, not a cognitively neutral tool used by an
encapsulated cognizer. Critics of the extended mind thesis have been,
if not legion, extremely persistent (Menary 2010). But they have
focused mostly on the disconcerting metaphysical implications, rather
than on the equally significant implications about cognition. John
Sutton (2010) anticipates the metaphysical tendentiousness of the
Parity Principle giving way to the important work of understanding the
complementarity of inner and outer processes in cognition which is
highlighted by the extended mind thesis. Individuating cognitive
processes widely, so that the unit of investigation is not the
mind/brain but cognitive systems comprising tightly coupled artifacts,
people, built environments and natural environments, is a viable
project in its own right, and one that was underway in many quarters
before the extended mind thesis was proposed.



The *locus classicus* is Edwin Hutchins' *Cognition in
the Wild* (1995). Hutchins preserves the traditional understanding
of cognition as computation--that is, the manipulation of
representations. But he argues that this computation takes place not
in individual heads, but distributed across systems of individuals,
artifacts, and other environmental structures. Hutchins works out his
theory of distributed cognition in the context of a magisterial study
of navigation aboard a US Navy ship. He shows that the representations
and transformations thereof required for navigation are propagated
across a complex system of charts, logs, instruments and cooperating
humans, no one of whom is either directing the process or in
possession of all the knowledge the system uses or produces.
Hutchins' own studies typically involve cognition in
technologically sophisticated workplaces. But other researchers in the
distributed cognition vein apply the theory to more easily accessible
everyday situations. David Kirsh (1995) argues that we use the
placement of artifacts in the surrounding space to simplify our
cognitive lives in various ways. For example, baggers in a grocery
store will first group different types of items--large, heavy,
fragile, and so on--on the checkout counter before starting to
pack the bags. This simplifies the cognitive task of spotting the
large heavy items you need for the bottom of the bag, or the medium
sized boxed items you need to fill in spaces half way up. Similarly,
someone preparing to bake a cake will often array all the ingredients
on the kitchen counter first, thus minimizing the possibility that any
will be left out in the heat of the moment. The general point,
emphasized across the board by proponents of situated cognition, is
that artifacts and other environmental structures
"scaffold" cognition, changing the nature of cognitive
tasks in important ways that typically make them more tractable (Lave
1988; Donald 1991; Clark 1997; Kirsh 2009; Michaelian & Sutton
2013).



Cognition is intimately bound up with action on any construal, but the
situated cognition framework makes it even more difficult to tease
them apart. On a more traditional view, the emphasis is on how
cognition shapes action. But on the situated cognition family of
views, the emphasis is on how bodily activity antecedently shapes
cognition, and indeed the mind in general (Gallagher 2005). Since
human action typically involves the making and manipulation of
artifacts, they, too, contribute to this mind-shaping process
(Malafouris 2013). But artifacts shape action and patterns of behavior
in the first instance. Some writers have focused on this
action-shaping aspect of artifacts rather than on the
cognition-shaping aspect. The *locus classicus* in this case is
Michel Foucault's (1975 [1977]) *Discipline and Punish*.
On Foucault's view, human action is substantially shaped by the
very layout of the built environment and the specifics of the smaller
artifacts that furnish it, not--as we naively tend to
assume--primarily by the interpersonal relationships of the
inhabitants. The most obvious examples seem innocuous. In chair
cultures, for instance, people sit upright and off the floor to eat
meals, while in non-chair cultures such as Japan they sit in various
postures--depending on the social situation--on cushions on
the floor. But Foucault focuses on less innocuous examples such as
prisons, which shape action in ways that manifest the exercise of
social power. He contrasts the dungeon model, in which behavior is
temporarily shaped simply by sheer physical control over the
prisoners' freedom of movement, with the Panopticon model, in
which the prisoners are kept under constant surveillance by invisible
observers, prompting them to shape their own behavior in various
habitual ways that survive the term of their imprisonment. This
ensures a kind of continuing social control not available under the
dungeon model. Foucault's further point is that this
"disciplinary" model is now pervasive in social
institutions from education to workplace to health care to the
"smart" home. Related themes surface in Bruno
Latour's (1994; 1999) technical mediation theory. On his
view, agency is not a property of individual humans, but rather of
collectives of "actants"--humans and nonhumans
related to each other in specific, systematic ways. In contemporary
western culture, the non-human actants are typically artifacts.
Latour's telling illustration starts with the well-known dispute
between gun control advocates, who insist that "guns kill"
and the National Rifle Association, which insists that "people
kill". Against both of these positions, Latour argues that the
agent who kills is neither the gun nor the person, but a composite
person-gun (or gun-person). Neither the person nor the gun remains the
same in this relational context as they were before. Moreover, Latour
argues, the relationship is symmetrical. Just as humans have
intentions that enable them to enlist specific artifacts, artifacts
have "scripts"--features of their design that enable
them to enlist humans, facilitating certain behaviors and inhibiting
others. Both Foucault and Latour tend to study the phenomena of human
action in large-scale, institutional contexts--prisons and
hospitals in the case of Foucault, scientific laboratories and
transportation systems in the case of the actor-network theory
pioneered by Latour and others. But there are also a number of writers
who focus on the role of artifacts in small-scale, everyday contexts.
Tim Ingold (2013), for example, focuses on skilled practice,
particularly in the context of making things, from stone tools to
baskets to paintings. His work shows that the generation of
artifactual structure is as much due to the nature of the materials
used as to any intention or plan on the part of the maker. Moreover,
the nature of the materials and the tools used structure the activity
of making itself. In a similar vein, Beth Preston (2013) argues that
human action is more a matter of improvisation than planning, and that
the continuously evolving structure of improvisatory action owes much
to the opportunities artifacts afford. Furthermore, it is in
interaction with artifacts in daily life that we develop the purposes
and behavior patterns appropriate to them. Thus, having started with a
traditional definition of "artifact" that emphasizes the
dependence of artifacts on human intentions and purposes, the
epistemology of artifacts brings us back around to a view that
emphasizes instead the dependence of human cognition and action on
artifacts.