Public Artifacts, Intentions, and Norms

Abstract

Artifacts are often said to be things intentionally created to serve a certain function, where function plays the dominant role in classifying artifacts into artifactual kinds. Here I argue, however, that artifacts need not have intended functions and that even when they do, that does not always play a core role in artifactual classification. Artifacts, I argue, must have intended features, but these may include not only functional but also structural, perceptible, or even receptive and normative features regarding how the object is to be regarded, used, or treated. Indeed, I argue that members of public artifact kinds depend on the existence of public norms of treatment. Recognizing the role of receptive and normative features in public artifact kinds enables us to provide a better account of artifact categorization, solve old puzzles about exaptation and minimal creation, and provide a better understanding of the significance of artifacts in our lives and in the social sciences.