Title: Artifacts and the Limits of Human Creative Intentions<\/p>\n
By Kathrin Koslicki (Neuch\u00e2tel, Philosophy)<\/p>\n
Date: Thursday April 29, 2021
\nTime: 1530-1645 (GMT+3)
\nPlease contact to the department for the Zoom Meeting information details.<\/p>\n
Abstract: According to Amie Thomasson\u2019s author-intention-based account of artifacts, an artifact of kind K is essentially a product of a largely successful intention to create something of kind K (see, e.g., Thomasson (2003), \u201cRealism and Human Kinds\u201d, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 592-602). A maker has the relevant intention if and only if she has a substantive concept of the nature of Ks which largely matches that of prior makers of Ks (if any) and she intends to realize that concept by imposing K-relevant features.<\/p>\n
In cases of prototype production, however, where there are no prior exemplars of the artifactual kind in question, Thomasson argues that what it is to be a K and what the K-relevant features are is determined, as a matter of invention or stipulation, purely by the content of the maker\u2019s intentions and the goals she sets out to achieve through her creative act. As a result, an agent who is constructing a prototype is related in a special way to the artifact and the artifactual kind she creates which protects her from certain kinds of error concerning the outcome of her creative act (see, e.g., Thomasson, Amie (2007): \u201cArtifacts and Human Concepts\u201d, in Creations of the Mind: Theories of Artifacts and Their Representation, edited by Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, pp. 60-61).<\/p>\n
In this paper, I discuss the adequacy of Thomasson\u2019s treatment of prototype production. I argue that the process of prototype production in fact allows for various sources of errors and failures on the part of agents attempting to carry out their creative intentions that are not recognized by Thomasson\u2019s author-intention-based account.
\nAbout the speaker: Kathrin Koslicki is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, Universit\u00e9 de Neuch\u00e2tel, Switzerland. Her work focuses on metaphysics (and metametaphysics), philosophy of language, and Ancient philosophy (especially Aristotle), and has appeared in such venues as the Journal of Philosophy, No\u00fbs, Philosophical Studies, and Oxford Studies in Metaphysics. She has also published two books with Oxford University Press \u2013 The Structure of Objects (2008) and Form, Matter, Substance (2018) \u2013 which develop and defend a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of ordinary objects.<\/p>\n
Web: http:\/\/www.phil.bilkent.edu.tr\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Title: Artifacts and the Limits of Human Creative Intentions By Kathrin Koslicki (Neuch\u00e2tel, Philosophy) Date: Thursday April 29, 2021 Time: 1530-1645 (GMT+3) Please contact to the department for the Zoom Meeting information details. Abstract: According to Amie Thomasson\u2019s author-intention-based account of artifacts, an artifact of kind K is essentially a [\u2026] <\/p>\n