86 Pieter E. Vermaas
artifact is taken as malfunctioning if it is in a state in which it has the capacity to φ, is not
capable of φ-ing, and can be brought into a state in which it is capable of φ-ing by repara-
tion or maintenance that is technologically and economically feasible and that is not part
of the use plan for the artifact.
Biological and technical functional descriptions thus still differ in my analysis. Biologi-
cal functions are typically ontologically objective and technical functions are typically
ontologically subjective. With my approach toward malfunctioning, one can now identify
a second difference: malfunctioning biological items may, in etiological theories, be items
that are irreversibly malformed, whereas in the proposed approach, an artifact may be
taken as malfunctioning only if it can reasonably be brought back into a state in which it
stops malfunctioning. Thus there remain enough differences that prevent taking biological
and technical functional descriptions as fi tting a uniform analysis.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank audiences in Altenberg, Padova, and Paris, and to acknowledge Peter
Kroes and Ulrich Krohs for valuable comments. Research for this contribution builds on
previous work done in collaboration with Wybo Houkes, and is supported by the Nether-
lands Organization of Scientifi c Research (NWO).
Notes
- See, for instance, Wouters (2005) and Preston’s contribution to this volume.
- Cummins’s theory may, as said, be taken as an exception.
- This difference between the epistemic and ontological ICE theories again illustrates that acceptance of an
epistemic function theory of the form Tep (or T ′ep) does not imply that one also has to accept the counterpart
ontological function theory Tont. Hence one can reject the ontological ICE theory but still subscribe to the original
epistemic theory.
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