# Actions Versus Functions: A Plea for an Alternative Metaphysics of Artifacts  ## Metadata - Author: [[readwise.io]] - Full Title: Actions Versus Functions: A Plea for an Alternative Metaphysics of Artifacts - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: This paper argues that understanding artifacts should focus on "artifact actions," such as using and designing, rather than just their functions. It highlights that existing function-centered theories struggle to explain the difference between standard and alternative uses of artifacts. The authors propose that an action-oriented approach provides a richer understanding of how artifacts are used and designed, leading to a more satisfactory metaphysics of artifacts. - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/224502113 - Source File: Actions Versus Functions- A Plea for an Alternative Metaphysics of Artifacts by Wybo Houkes and Pieter Vermaas.pdf ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > The philosophy of artifacts is as marginal as it is one-sided. The majority of contributions to it are asides in works devoted to other subjects and focus on one characteristic feature: that artifacts are objects with functions. Indeed many artifacts, such as screwdrivers and toasters, come in func tional kinds. P ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r4eez1arrw9hj8ddcx6rpa)) > a theory of using > and designing. > Most of this paper > is devoted to the first, phenomenological > argument. > In Section 1, we attempt to show that theories of functions have difficul > ty accounting for a salient characteristic of the phenomenology of artifact > use?the > common distinction between standard use and alternative or > improper use. T ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r4npffx4szndxsf1wgjt3s)) > his suggests that a theory of functions ought to be at least supplemented and perhaps even replaced with something else, and it suggests focusing on using instead of functions. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r4p8tddd79yttqnnd4w6q7)) > rtifact use has a rich phenomenology. Philosophers have discussed some aspects: Heidegger's Sein und Zeit contains an elaborate description of the relatedness of artifacts in use, and Merleau-Ponty emphasized that artifacts, in use, often serve as extensions of our body. In this paper, we would like to focus on another aspect of the phenomenology, namely the existence of standard, alternative, and ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r4q65z5c2fcxw3jz9gaf4b)) > ore recently, Beth Preston formulated a theory that makes a distinction between proper functions and system functions, and has explicitly extended it to the realm of artifacts.4 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r4tyxfqf6jdjs8b03hz3mp)) > yields only one resource: a sharp distinction between A preliminary point is that, as it stands, the function-oriented strategy proper and acciden tal functions. Some actual or non-actual features of an artifact that are somehow "marked" as privileged are the basis of its proper functions; others?possibly all remaining features of the artifact?are accidental functions. Functions live, so to say, in a class the basis for society: proletariat of accidental functions and a select elite of proper a limitless functions. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r4vw1qw1e9bxcqjqg0ex4q)) > First of all, existing theories of function make no distinctions within the class of accidental functions. T ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r4wmabrrkfrn4ee7gzkrne)) > or technical artifacts and their use, however, things are not as clear-cut. That a rocking-chair is not for standing on already seems a statement of a different category than that a dinner-table chair is not for standing on. Moreover, some alternative uses are taken as acceptable and others as improper. Hence, analyzing alternative use simply as employment (or ascription) of an accidental function is phenomeno logically impoverished. Ye ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r4xhtfk8hqskxs48pcwqz7)) > hese scenarios can be described and reduce fever. > in terms of proper and accidental functions: Aspirin tablets and beer always had the accidental function of preventing blood clots and attracting slugs, respectively, which have recently been "promoted" to the status of proper the very least that functions are relational properties; functions. This shows at after all, the under lying physicochemical properties of Aspirin and beer did not change. But what are they related to? In both cases, the main reason to promote acci dental functions to proper status appears to be redesign (possibly in the trivial sense of changing the purpose of their production) or change of socially established use. There appears i.e., in the physical properties, to be no change on the object-side, of artifacts, but only on the designer- or user-side. Formulating this change in terms of relational properties of the objects in question is not obviously wrong or inadequate, but if the relation al nature of functions is not clearly brought out, it is at least misleading. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r50qa04kc3n82q6an77jf7)) > Our alternative to the function-oriented approach is to analyze using and designing immediately in terms of actions. In this section, we present the main features of our reconstruction7 of these two types of "artifact actions." Central to our action-theoretical analysis is the notion of a use plan. Defining a plan somewhat loosely as a goal-directed sidered actions, a use plan of object series of con is a series of such actions in which manipulations of are included as contributions to realizing the given goal. This is a rough-and-ready characterization the purposes of this paper. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r55ve1c7ym7t3nzrp1mpek)) > we call this series of con sidered actions (roughly: starting relevant software, looking up the address and hitting the "send" button) a use a message, friend's answering device. Our characterization of use of my friend, composing plan for my computer. The third plan involves manipulation of two objects, my phone and my plans is liberal in that it allows us to say that this plan is consequently a use plan for both the phone and the answering device.9 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r575stwpj1rs5h43sfcqg5)) > rivers do not deliberate > autonomously about the way > to use their cars. While taking driving lessons, > they have received instruction in a use plan and they follow this plan, or > something like it, throughout their careers as drivers. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r599rspdq73a364082csdr)) > Two major advantages to this plan-based reconstruction of artifact actions are of immediate relevance for this paper. First, there exist standards of rationality for plans. Second, a theory of artifact functions can be derived from a plan theory of artifact actions. I ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r5ct4ewwak594tv9m9pwz4)) > The second problematic aspect of the phenomenology is the dynamical nature of standard use. If one only has recourse to a distinction between proper and accidental functions, changes in use of artifacts must be described as the elevation of an accidental function of the artifact to "proper" status by some appropriate mechanism. There is no a priori reason to suppose that this analysis will fail. Yet the two major theories of function currently in play, the etiological and causal-role theories, both have trouble coping with the dynamics of use. F ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r5nysjrfxvv88ancj6x1bv)) > or most etiological theories, the long-term re production history of artifacts is the basis of their functions.17 Features that have not been subject to this long-term reproduction only have acci dental status and acquire proper status after multiple reproduction steps. > Their narrow focus on reproductive mechanisms makes standard etiolog ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r5pvf68qkdfy2ef0434w7a)) > ical theories incapable of accounting for these innovative function ascriptions. This shortcoming is usually ignored for the biological case, but it seems too pressing for the technological case to wave aside. The causal-role theory by Robert Cummins regards as functions those capacities of a more that contribute to a capacity riously unable of items encompassing system.18 It is noto to make a distinction between functions, given its liberal notion of 'system'. One proper and accidental consequence is that it cannot describe the elevation and degradation of features; they all had the same status to start with. F ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r5q92m1ss5f5vv25rrnvak)) > inally, combinations of both theories, which have recently become en vogue, are just as unsuccessful. Combinations that attempt to reduce one theory to the other are non-starters with respect to the current problem, as they inherit the incompetence of their favorite. Only pluralistic accounts, which subdivide the notion of function, stand a chance. These, however, merely displace the problem. By regarding the causal-role theory as the basis for accidental functions and the etiological theory as the basis for proper functions, for instance, the elevation-degra dation dynamics is turned into an intertheoretical one. The problem be comes one of explaining how and why a function that was defined by one theory is later defined by the other. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9r5rny0whsy842ht2cc7zgy))