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 …

We start in this chapter by analysing the nature of technical artefacts. What sorts of objects
are they? What are the typical characteristics of technical artefacts? Given that technical …

In this paper we present an action-theoretic account of artefact using and designing and
describe our ICE-theory of function ascriptions to technical artefacts. By means of this …

The philosophy of artifacts is as marginal as it is one-sided. The majority of contributions to it
are asides in works devoted to other subjects and focus on one characteristic feature: that …

The aim of this paper is to evaluate etiological accounts of functions for the domain of
technical artefacts. Etiological theories ascribe functions to items on the basis of the causal …

Publisher Summary A popular strategy for studying technological knowledge and arguing for
epistemic emancipation is to contrast science and technology—more specifically: to look at …

I argue that technological functions warrant specific epistemological attention, which they
have not received thus far. From a user's perspective, knowledge about the possible …

In this paper, we present an action-theoretical account of use and design. Central to this
account is the notion of a user plan, which leads us to distinguish a cycle of plan design from …

We examine to what extent an adequate ontology of technical artefacts can be based on
existing general accounts of the relation between higher-order objects and their material …

Digital-technology usage in dynamic and complex work practices is a core phenomenon in
innovation research. There are, however, few detailed analyses of how people organize the …