Abstract
In this epilogue I start with a recapitulation of the dual-nature thesis of technical artefacts while highlighting its main innovative features in comparison to existing theories of technical artefacts and technical functions. Then, looking ahead to interesting topics of further research, I propose to shift attention from technical artefacts taken in isolation, as I have done in this book, to technical artefacts as embedded within social systems. These broader systems are usually referred to as ‘socio-technical’ systems. The notion of a socio-technical system opens up new and interesting ways to study the mutual interaction between the technical and the social world and is rapidly gaining currency in various fields of study. However, a clear conceptualization of this kind of system is still lacking. As their name already indicates, socio-technical systems seem to have a hybrid nature as well, but a brief look suffices to show that the kind of hybridity encountered here is different from the hybridity of technical artefacts.
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Since there is no volonté generale of humankind about what ends to realize by what kind of technical means it may rightly be questioned whether such sweeping statements make sense; the point I want to make here is that technical artefacts originate in the needs, desires and ends of people without going into any detail about whose needs, desires and ends and what happens in situations of diverging needs, desires and ends.
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In a similar heterogeneous vein the notion of socio-technical system is defined by Geels (2005, p. viii). Also the notion of system employed in systems engineering is a heterogeneous one; according to the systems engineering handbook of the International Council on Systems Engineering a system is (INCOSE 2004, p. 11) “An integrated set of elements that accomplish a defined objective. These elements include products (hardware, software, firmware), processes, people, information, techniques, facilities, services, and other support elements.” This INCOSE conception of a system may be not as wide ranging as Hughes’s, the inclusion of people makes a system also heterogeneous.
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Kroes, P. (2012). Epilogue. 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_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3940-6_7
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