This book, originally published in French, examines the philosophical debates on functions over the last forty years and proposes new ways of analysis. Pervasive throughout the life sciences, the concept of function has the air of an epistemological scandal: ascribing a function to a biological structure or process amounts to suggesting that it is explained by its effects. This book confronts the debates on function with the use of the notion in a wide range of disciplines, such as biology, psychology, and medicine. It also raises the question of whether this notion, which is as old in the history of technology as it is in the life sciences, has the same meaning in these two domains.

Simon J. Evnine explores the view (which he calls amorphic hylomorphism) that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. He draws on Aristotle's insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are (the coincidence of formal, final, and efficient causes). Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide, and Evnine develops a detailed account of the existence and identity conditions of artifacts, and the origins of their functions, in terms of how they come into existence. This process is, in general terms, that they are made out of their initial matter by an agent acting with the intention to make an object of the given kind. Evnine extends the account to organisms, where evolution accomplishes what is effected by intentional making in the case of artifacts, and to actions, which are seen as artifactual events.

Creations of the Mind presents sixteen original essays by theorists from a wide variety of disciplines who have a shared interest in the nature of artifacts and their implications for the human mind. All the papers are written specially for this volume, and they cover a broad range of topics concerned with the metaphysics of artifacts, our concepts of artifacts and the categories that they represent, the emergence of an understanding of artifacts in infants' cognitive development, as well as the evolution of artifacts and the use of tools by non-human animals. This volume will be a fascinating resource for philosophers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists, and the starting point for future research in the study of artifacts and their role in human understanding, development, and behaviour. Contributors: John R. Searle, Richard E. Grandy, Crawford L. Elder, Amie L. Thomasson, Jerrold Levinson, Barbara C. Malt, Steven A. Sloman, Dan Sperber, Hilary Kornblith, Paul Bloom, Bradford Z. Mahon, Alfonso Caramazza, Jean M. Mandler, Deborah Kelemen, Susan Carey, Frank C. Keil, Marissa L. Greif, Rebekkah S. Kerner, James L. Gould, Marc D. Hauser, Laurie R. Santos, Steven Mithen

An investigation of the analogy between evolutionaryprocesses and the processes of intelligent design used in thelanguage of modern biology.

Most historians rely principally on written sources. Yet there are other traces of the past available to historians: the material things that people have chosen, made, and used. This book examines how material culture can enhance historians' understanding of the past, both worldwide and across time. The successful use of material culture in history depends on treating material things of many kinds not as illustrations, but as primary evidence. Each kind of material thing-and there are many-requires the application of interpretive skills appropriate to it. These skills overlap with those acquired by scholars in disciplines that may abut history but are often relatively unfamiliar to historians, including anthropology, archaeology, and art history. Creative historians can adapt and apply the same skills they honed while studying more traditional text-based documents even as they borrow methods from these fields. They can think through familiar historical problems in new ways. They can also deploy material culture to discover the pasts of constituencies who have left few or no traces in written records. The authors of this volume contribute case studies arranged thematically in six sections that respectively address the relationship of history and material culture to cognition, technology, the symbolic, social distinction, and memory. They range across time and space, from Paleolithic to Punk.

The Handbook Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences addresses numerous issues in the emerging field of the philosophy of those sciences that are involved in the technological process of designing, developing and making of new technical artifacts and systems. These issues include the nature of design, of technological knowledge, and of technical artifacts, as well as the toolbox of engineers. Most of these have thus far not been analyzed in general philosophy of science, which has traditionally but inadequately regarded technology as mere applied science and focused on physics, biology, mathematics and the social sciences. - First comprehensive philosophical handbook on technology and the engineering sciences - Unparalleled in scope including explorative articles - In depth discussion of technical artifacts and their ontology - Provides extensive analysis of the nature of engineering design - Focuses in detail on the role of models in technology

Investigations into the relationship between organism and artifacts from the perspective of functionality.

Archaeologists have been developing artifact typologies to understand cultural categories for as long as the discipline has existed. Dwight Read examines these attempts to systematize the cultural domains in premodern societies through a historical study of pottery typologies. He then offers a methodology for producing classifications that are both salient to the cultural groups that produced them and relevant for establishing cultural categories and timelines for the archaeologist attempting to understand the relationship between material culture and ideational culture of ancient societies. This volume is valuable to upper level students and professional archaeologists across the discipline.

Insights into the intelligence throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and under our skin. Is there a way to understand the materials that surround us not as passive objects, but as other intelligences interacting with our own? In Parallel Minds, expert in materials science and nanotechnology Laura Tripaldi delivers not only detailed insights into the properties and emergent behaviors of matter as revealed by state-of-the-art chemistry, synthetic biology, and nanotech, but also a rich philosophical reflection that crosses the frontier between nature and culture, where the most cutting-edge scientific syntheses resonate with ancient myth. The result is a technomaterial bestiary full of unexpected encounters with “strange minds”—from cobwebs to kevlar and carbon fibre, from centaurs to amoebas to arachnids, from polycephalic slime to resonating plasmons, from viruses to golems. Parallel Minds reveals the intelligence at large throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and even under our skin. Full of lateral ideas and unexpected images, Tripaldi’s book imbues the study and synthesis of materials with a new urgency. For not only do the materials that surround us participate actively in the construction of the world in which we live, but harnessing their ability to interact intelligently with their environment could be the key to the future of our species.

What is the human good? What are the primary virtues that make a good person? What makes an action right? Must we try to maximize good consequences? How can we know what is right and good? Can morality be rationally justified? In Ethics Through History, Terence Irwin addresses such fundamental questions, making these central debates intelligible to readers without an extensive background in philosophy. He provides a historical and philosophical discussion of major questions and key philosophers in the history of ethics, in the tradition that begins with Socrates onwards. Irwin covers ancient, medieval, and modern moral philosophers whose views have helped to form the agenda for contemporary ethical theory, paying attention to the strengths and weaknesses of their respective positions.