The dual nature of technical artifacts : presentation of a new research programme

In our thinking, speaking and doing we employ two basic conceptualizations of the world. On the one hand, we see the world as consisting of physical objects interacting through causal connections. On the other hand, we see it as consisting of agents (primarily human beings), who intentionally represent the world and act in it. The great successes of natural science have suggested to many that the physical or material conceptualization fits every part of the empirically accessible universe, including humans. This idea, however, has created serious problems for the intentional conceptualization. It suggests that mental states are causally inefficacious in human actions, or conversely, that human action is causally overdetermined by mental states as well as brain states. Nowadays a large part of the philosophy of mind is devoted to analyzing these types of problems. Our research program, The dual nature of technical artifacts , will address a set of problems that originate in the existence of these two conceptualizations. The intentional conceptualization applies not only to mental states of individual persons, but also to social entities, i.e., entities involving several persons, such as gangs, armies, banks, governments, countries, etc. And it stretches out in another direction, so to speak, to include (technical) artifacts, such as screwdrivers, spectrographs and skyscrapers. It is this category of technical artifacts on which the research program focuses. Its subject matter is the applicability of the two conceptualizations and their interrelatedness when human beings connect to the physical world in the creation of technical artifacts (artifacts designed by engineers). The problems encountered here are different from the ones in the philosophy of mind. In that discipline one problem among others is the existence of two alternative conceptualizations of mental states, where one seems to be superfluous in the explanation of human action. As will be explained below, the problem addressed here is the indispensability of both conceptualizations for understanding and explainin