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Introduction

Part of the book series: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology ((POET,volume 6))

Abstract

The world in which we live is a world of technical artefacts. We live our lives with and through them. It is not so much the natural world as well as the technical world that conditions human life. This technical world not only provides us with the means to adapt the physical environment to our needs and desires. Its influence stretches out much further into the world of social affairs and into the world of ideas. Through the ages, for instance, technology has provided strong metaphors for interpreting what it means to be a human being, such as the man-machine or the brain-computer metaphors. So, the technical world strongly influences human thinking and doing. This book is an attempt to understand what kind of world this technical world is by studying the nature of the basic elements that make up this world, namely technical artefacts. Given their pervasive influence on human thoughts and actions, such an understanding may contribute to, or may even be a requisite step to a better understanding of the modern human condition. To that end, this book addresses a number of questions all of which centre around technical artefacts. What kind of objects are they? What does it mean for an object to be a technical artefact? In what sense are they different from objects from the natural world, or the social world? How do they come into existence? Does it make sense to consider technical artefacts to be morally good or bad because of the way they influence human life?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term ‘theory’ stems from the Greek ‘θεωρειν’, of which one of its original meanings is to be a spectator at a theatre.

  2. 2.

    In many practices involving scientists and engineers these two attitudes to the world may merge to such a degree that it becomes difficult to characterize such practices as either scientific or technological. Nevertheless, the distinction between these two attitudes makes sense; it is easy to point out scientific and technological practices that reflect these attitudes in more or less pure forms.

  3. 3.

    For discussions of the notion of artefact, see for instance Dipert (1993), Simons (1995), Hilpinen (2004) and Margolis and Laurence (2007).

  4. 4.

    This means that software programs fall outside the scope of this book. I consider software programs to be ‘incomplete’ technical artefacts; only in combination with the appropriate hardware that executes software programs are they able to fulfil their technical function.

  5. 5.

    This quote is from an edited volume with the title Creations of the mind: essays on artifacts and their representations (Margolis and Laurence 2007).

  6. 6.

    In art trouvé also technical artefacts may be turned into works of art by the thoughts or intentions of artists; think of Duchamp’s pissoir.

  7. 7.

    As far as I know the term “for-ness” was coined by Dipert in a paper he presented at Delft University of Technology, (Dipert 2000); see also Romano (2009).

  8. 8.

    Throughout this book I leave out of consideration biological technical artefacts, such as genetically modified organisms. For a discussion of functions in the natural and artificial domains, see (Krohs and Kroes 2009).

  9. 9.

    For a discussion of theoretical and practical rationality in relation to engineering design, see (Kroes et al. 2009).

  10. 10.

    There is not always a strict division of labour; design engineers, for instance, may make real technical artefacts such as prototypes to perform experiments on.

References

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Kroes, P. (2012). Introduction. In: Technical Artefacts: Creations of Mind and Matter. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3940-6_1

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