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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3392-7502
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Philosophy
Year Degree Awarded
2022
Month Degree Awarded
May
First Advisor
Ned Markosian
Second Advisor
Hilary Kornblith
Third Advisor
Phillip Bricker
Fourth Advisor
Amie Thomasson
Fifth Advisor
Erik Cheries
Subject Categories
Metaphysics
Abstract
My dissertation explores the nature of artifacts – things like chairs, tables, and pinball machines – and addresses the question of whether there is anything essential to being an artifact and a member of a particular artifact kind. My dissertation offers new arguments against both the anti-essentialist and current essentialist proposals. Roughly put, the view is that artifacts are successful products of an intention to make something with certain features constitutive of an artifact kind. The constitutive features are often functional features, but may include structural, material, aesthetic, and other features. I further explore the ways in which artifacts are mind-dependent and I argue that this dependence is disjunctive. Not only do they depend on the intentions of their makers, but they also can depend on social groups or public norms and thus artifacts have an importantly social dimension and I argue that this disjunctive account applies not to artifact kinds but to individual artifacts depending on their context of creation.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/28595796
Recommended Citation
Juvshik, Tim, "A Metaphysics of Artifacts: Essence and Mind-Dependence" (2022). Doctoral Dissertations. 2537.
https://doi.org/10.7275/28595796
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2537