Abstract
The philosophical study of artifacts faces a serious problem going forward. There is a gap between work in the metaphysics of artifacts and work in other disciplines, such as psychology and anthropology. This gap primarily concerns the status of the category “artifact” itself and secondarily the status of the notion of artifact kinds. The existence of this gap raises questions as to whether work in the metaphysics of artifacts can be connected fruitfully with work on artifacts issuing from other disciplines, and if so, how. I argue that the best way to bridge this gap is a new interdisciplinary program I call ethnotechnology. I explain why ethnotechnology is needed and what it would involve.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a similar complaint by another reviewer, see Vermaas (2008).
- 2.
For another perspective on this history, one more focused on the last century in Anglo-American metaphysics; see Thomasson (2009).
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
The only exception is Jerrold Levinson, who forgoes general questions about the reality of artifacts and artifact kinds to address the ontological status of works of conceptual art, where the intentions of the artist are allegedly more open ended than in the case of ordinary artifacts. I will therefore not discuss Levinson’s contribution.
- 6.
There is also a third category, “terrapin,” which is not in wide use in the United States, although it is used more commonly in other English-speaking countries, I think.
- 7.
This interpretation sorts well with Thomas Reydon’s view (Chap. 8, this volume) that the recent history of research into natural kinds in philosophy of science shows that kinds are in the first instance epistemologically defined groupings and that the metaphysics follows the epistemology rather than the other way around.
- 8.
This difficulty is illustrated in Crawford Elder’s essay in Part I. He does have an objective definition of artifact kinds – they are created by biological or cultural copying processes. But his account of copied kinds has the result that neckties, high-heeled shoes, and the like are not copied kinds (2007, pp. 48–49). This is because the members of a copied kind must have a typical shape (literal or metaphorical), which is causally responsible for the successful performance that prompts the copying. Although neckties, for instance, do have a typical shape, Elder claims that this shape does not cause the performance of generating social acceptability for the wearer which is responsible for the proliferation of neckties. Rather it is the behavior of wearing a necktie (which also has a typical shape, if not a literal one) which generates the social acceptability. So counterintuitively – at least from the perspective of the folk – neckties and the like are not copied kinds and thus not artifact kinds, whereas wearings of neckties and similar behaviors are copied kinds, and thus presumably artifact kinds. Whether or not Elder’s analysis here is correct, it illustrates nicely the insouciance with which even metaphysicians dedicated to the philosophical rehabilitation of ordinary objects may be disposed to treat ordinary intuitions about artifacts and their kinds.
- 9.
“Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world, revisionary metaphysics is concerned to produce a better structure” (Strawson 1959/1963, p. xiii).
- 10.
“Certainly concepts do change, and not only, though mainly, on the specialist periphery; and even specialist changes react on ordinary thinking” (Strawson 1959/1963, p. xiv).
- 11.
The connections are very complex, though, and do not always result in the lay practitioner fully understanding or accepting the metaphysical theory that backs the practices. For an influential and sophisticated account of these connections in the case of Theravada Buddhism, see Melford Spiro (1982).
- 12.
Thanks to Amie Thomasson (personal communication, 2010) for insisting on this point.
- 13.
See the contributions in Part III of this volume for some interesting suggestions along these lines.
- 14.
The term “ethnotechnology” has sometimes been used as a replacement for the outdated and undesirable “primitive technology” to mean the study of traditional technologies only. See http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Ethnotechnology_(deleted_13_Feb_2008_at_18:26), for instance. I intend it to be used generally to cover the study of people making and/or using things, regardless of the level of technical sophistication involved.
- 15.
The experimental philosophers have their own manifesto (Knobe and Nichols 2008). Or see the experimental philosophy homepage: http://experimentalphilosophy.org/ExperimentalPhilosophy.html
- 16.
A good introduction to ethnobiology can be obtained from the website of the Society of Ethnobiology (http://www.ethnobiology.org/). There is also a related research area called ethnoecology. It takes a more holistic approach, focusing on the relationships between people and the ecosystems in which they live. This approach would also be a fruitful one to pursue, but to keep things simpler and within space limitations, I will not discuss it here.
- 17.
For a classic work in this vein, see Brent Berlin’s Ethnobiological Classification (1992).
- 18.
Indeed, some philosophers of science are already involved. See the essays by John Dupré and David Hull in Medin and Atran (1999), for instance.
- 19.
The sustainability also depends to some extent on the limitation of population growth. Hunter-gatherers typically space their children out at four- or five-year intervals. This is because you do not want to have more than one child at a time who has to be carried anymore than you want a lot of material possessions that have to be carried.
- 20.
Populations started to grow much faster at this period as well.
References
Baker, L. R. (2007). The metaphysics of everyday life: An essay in practical realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berlin, B. (1992). Ethnobiological classification. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bloom, P. (2007). Water as an artifact kind. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 150–156). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Elder, C. L. (2005). Real natures and familiar objects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Elder, C. L. (2007). The place of artifacts in ontology. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 33–51). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Gill, M. L. (1989). Aristotle on substance. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Grandy, R. E. (2007). Artifacts: Parts and principles. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 18–32). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Knobe, J., & Nichols, S. (2008). An experimental philosophy manifesto. In J. Knobe & S. Nichols (Eds.), Experimental philosophy (pp. 3–16). New York: Oxford University Press.
Mahon, B. Z., & Caramazza, A. (2007). The organization and representation of conceptual knowledge in the brain: Living kinds and artifacts. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 157–187). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Malt, B. C., & Sloman, S. A. (2007). Artifact categorization: The good, the bad, and the ugly. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 85–123). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (Eds.). (2007). Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Medin, D. L., & Atran, S. (Eds.). (1999). Folkbiology. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press (Bradford Books).
Merricks, T. (2000). No statues. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 78(1), 47–52.
Merricks, T. (2001). Objects and persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Plato. (1992). Republic (G. M. A. Grube, Trans.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Preston, B. (2008). Review of Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (E. Margolis, & S. Laurence, Eds.). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, May 14, 2008. http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=13083
Searle, J. R. (2007). Social ontology. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 3–17). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Sperber, D. (2007). Seedless grapes: Nature and culture. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 124–137). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Spiro, M. E. (1982). Buddhism and society: A great tradition and its Burmese vicissitudes (2nd, expanded ed.). Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press.
Strawson, P. F. (1959/1963). Individuals. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Anchor Books).
Thomasson, A. L. (2007a). Ordinary objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thomasson, A. L. (2007b). Artifacts and human concepts. In E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.), Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (pp. 52–73). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Thomasson, A. L. (2009). Artifacts in metaphysics. In A. Meijers (Volume Ed.) and D. M. Gabbay, P. Thagard, & J. Woods (General Eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of science. Vol. 9: Philosophy of technology and engineering sciences (pp. 191–212). Amsterdam/Oxford/Burlington: Elsevier.
Unger, P. (1979a). There are no ordinary things. Synthese, 41, 117–154.
Unger, P. (1979b). Why there are no people. In P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, & H. K. Wettstein (Eds.), Studies in metaphysics (Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4, pp. 177–222). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
van Inwagen, P. (1990). Material beings. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.
Vermaas, P. E. (2008). Review of Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation (E. Margolis, & S. Laurence, Eds.). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, Philosophy of Science, 75(October 2008), 473–477.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Preston, B. (2014). Ethnotechnology: A Manifesto. In: Franssen, M., Kroes, P., Reydon, T.A.C., Vermaas, P.E. (eds) Artefact Kinds. Synthese Library, vol 365. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00801-1_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00801-1_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-00800-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-00801-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)