Artifact concept pluralism

Abstract

Countless artifacts surround our lives. We have a rough idea of what artifacts are: artifacts are objects made to serve a certain purpose. However, there is no consensus on how to specify this definition. Essentialists argue that objects are grouped into artifact kinds by sharing non-trivial artifact essences, while anti-essentialists argue that there is no such essence to be found. However, the prominent essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts suffer from extensional and definitional problems. In this thesis, I aim to show that the problems current essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts face mainly stem from the assumption of artifact concept monism. According to artifact concept monism, there is only a single way to group objects into artifact kinds. To remedy the problems that stem from artifact concept monism, this thesis offers an alternative framework by drawing parallels from the debates on species concept pluralism and art concept pluralism. I call this framework artifact concept pluralism. According to artifact concept pluralism, there are (at least) three ways to group objects into artifact kinds. I believe pluralism enables us to bring metaphysical and epistemic considerations together without giving up on the classificatory aims and requiring a significant revision in our taxonomical practices. To this end, this thesis explores the viability of artifact concept pluralism and attempts to defend it from several objections.