A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Technology and Artifacts

Technology is normally associated with the production of abiotic/exbiotic artifacts, such as houses, machines. Aristotle, in his analysis in terms of the four causes – material, efficient, formal and final – used a statue as prototype of an artifact. This might have, subconsciously, over the centuries, influenced our understanding of the concept of artifact, making it difficult for some to grasp that artifacts could be either abiotic or biotic. This means that a living organism could be transformed by human technology to become an artifact;³ this is to say that the ontological status of a living organism as a naturally occurring being could, in principle, be transformed to become that of an artifactual one.

Artifacts are, therefore, the ontological foil of naturally occurring beings. The latter may be defined as that which have come into existence, continue to exist, and go out of existence, in principle, independently of human existence or manipulation; the former, in contrast, may be defined as the material embodiment of human intentionality, as they would not have come into existence, continue/cease to exist without the explicit intention and intervention of Homo faber. The ontological difference between the two domains may be further explained in terms of the following three theses of teleology:

1. External – this may be said to embody a strident anthropocentrism as it holds that Earth has come into existence for the very specific purpose of serving ...