Being For 175
The characterization of natural facts in intentional terms is also responsible for a crucial
misunderstanding. This is the bias with which we usually consider for-ness to be dependent
on agency and intentionality. For-ness instead can be considered as a feature that is both
logically and psychologically independent of any intentional characterization. From a
logical point of view, that a certain object is for something is a property that does not need
to rely on the relational dependence of an agent (the supposed designer) and his or her
perspective. Indeed the recognition that a certain object is for something does depend on
an intentional perspective, but this is one and the same as a beholder who identifi es any
other property. Thus the fact that a certain object is for something is related to a point of
view, but not necessarily that of a designer. For-ness is also identifi able from a psychologi-
cal point of view without any need to appeal to an agent, the one who is supposed to have
designed the object at stake as being for something. We can easily recognize that a shell
as well as an ashtray can be for containing ash or other powder. The requirement of the
capacity to grasp agency and intentionality is not therefore necessary to detect for-ness,
and it only seems to be needed because of the intentional bias that makes us match the
feature that a certain entity is for something upon being made—arguably because we
mostly refer to things that are made by humans and that are always made for something.
We live in artifact-saturated environments.
Let me summarize the remarks of this section. First, I displayed the weak points of
each of the two hypotheses about the Design Stance that I reviewed. Then I criticized the
two cognitive conditions that are presupposed by both hypotheses in order to account
for functional cognition. These are, on the one hand, the prerequisites for causal cognition
and, on the other hand, the idea that in order to make sense of the for-ness of a certain
item we have to presuppose an agent that made it for something. I argued that the mastery
of causal cognition is not suffi cient to provide an understanding of for-ness. I asserted
that the requirement to master a metaintentional ability is unnecessary. Given that I main-
tain that intentionality recognition is unnecessary, I also considered the hypothesis that
matches the two cognitive processes discussed in this section 10.2 to be unnecessary
(causal cognition plus agency cognition) in a more complex and systematic cognitive
structure. Such a hypothesized complex cognitive structure (actually, like the ones
proposed by the two pairs of psychologists) would be explanatorily ineffective and
excessively concocted.
The aforementioned are just some reasons for believing that the accounts of the capacity
to categorize and conceptualize artifacts by means of the Stance of Design are not fully sat-
isfactory. In fact the Design Stance appears to be a rather confused explanatory principle
that creates more problems than it solves. The relation between the for-ness of an artifact
and the intentions of its designer, which are taken to be constitutive of the Stance of Design,
are particularly dubious, because they are unspecifi ed. Furthermore I think that these
accounts are unsatisfactory because they do not explain either why we are inclined to dis-
tinguish between artifacts and natural entities or why we often misapply this