Artefacts and Normativity

Abstract

The mere using of an object, be it a natural or an artefactual object, for a purpose is to be distinguished from the making of an artefact. The making of an artefact is the intentional modification of one or more of the properties of a natural object, resulting in the creation of an artefact. The basic defining characteristic that distinguishes artefacts from the other tangible objects with which the environment is filled is a relational and historical one. Artefacts are objects that have been made by people for a particular purpose. Two objects may be identical in all of their physical properties, yet one may be a natural object while the other is an artefact. This may seem a very implausible thing to occur for the ordinary consumer products that are the prototypical artefact for most people: artificial diamonds or rubies, for instance, are much used in various branches of industry. The defining characteristic limits artefacts to a subclass of the class of all things that are made by humans, in the sense of resulting from an intentional act that consists in the modification and reshaping of material bodies. Other elements in this class, for instance waste products, such as exhaust fumes and sawdust, and other things that are the by-products or side-effects of human action, such as footprints and fingerprints, are not artefacts, because, although the process from which they result is done for a purpose and the maker is aware of producing them, the fact that they are made is accepted rather than intended and the maker has no purpose for them.