CFP: Artifact Functions – Perspectives on Artifact Functionality from Philosophy of Art and Philosophy of Technology

The conference aims at presenting and discussing unifying accounts of artifact functionality including both functions of art and functions of technical artifacts. In the past, research on functions concentrated mainly on biological functions, however recently the functions of artifacts have been brought into focus: It is no longer only the philosophy of biology that deals with functionality, but also the philosophy of art and the philosophy of technology. Whereas several accounts intended to bridge research on biological functions and research on functions of (technical) artifacts have been presented, there is still a lack of accounts (explicitly) designed to include both functions of art and functions of technical artifacts. The scheduled conference is supposed to fill this desideratum by asking both experts in the theory of functions of art and experts in the theory of functions of technical artifacts to extend their accounts to artifacts in general and discuss their insights with other experts from both domains.

The conference will feature eight talks on the topic of artifact functionality, four talks by invited speakers and four talks by PhD students or Postdocs. PhD students as well as Postdocs working on artifact functions in the area of philosophy of art or philosophy of technology are invited to submit an extended abstract (1000 words). Please send your extended abstract to [email protected] 

Confirmed Speakers:

Massimiliano Carrara (University of Padua),
Wybo Houkes (Eindhoven University of Technology),
Glenn Parsons (Ryerson University),
Robert Stecker (Central Michigan University)

Conference Organisation: Amrei Bahr (University of Muenster)

For any further questions, please contact the conference organiser via [email protected].