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This book is about the functions of technical artefacts, material
objects made to serve practical purposes; objects ranging from
tablets of Aspirin to Concorde, from wooden clogs to nuclear
submarines. More precisely, the book is about
usinganddesigningartefacts,
aboutwhatitmeanstoascribefunctionstothem, and about the relations
between using, designing and ascribing functions. In the following
pages, we present a detailed account that shows how strong these
relations are. Technical functions cannot be properly analysed
without taking into regard the beliefs and actions of human beings,
we contend. This account stays deceptively close to common sense.
After all, who would deny that artefacts are for whatever purpose
they are designed or used? As we shall show, however, such
intentionalist accounts face staunch opposition from other
accounts, such as those that focus on long-term reproduction of
artefacts. These accounts are partly right and mostly wrong - and
although we do take a common-sense position in the end, it is only
after sophisticated analysis. F- thermore, the results of this
analysis reveal that technical functions depend on a larger and
more structured set of beliefs and actions than is typically s-
posed. Much work in the succeeding pages goes into developing an
appropriate action-theoretical account, and forging a connection
with function ascriptions.
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