The design stance and its artefacts

Abstract

In this paper we disambiguate the design stance as proposed by Daniel C. Dennett, focusing on its application to technical artefacts. Analysing Dennett's work and developing his approach towards interpreting entities, we show that there are two ways of spelling out the design stance, one that presuppose also adopting Dennett's intentional stance for describing a designing agent, and a second that does not. We argue against taking one of these ways as giving the correct formulation of the design stance in Dennett's approach, but propose to replace Dennett's original design stance by two design stances: an intentional designer stance that incorporates the inten-tional stance, and a teleological design stance that does not. Our arguments focus on descriptions of technical artefacts: drawing on research in engineering, cognitive psychology and archaeology we show that both design stances are used for describing technical artefacts. A first consequence of this disambiguation is that a design stance, 123 Synthese in terms of interpretative assumptions and in terms of the pragmatic considerations for adopting it, stops to be a stance that comes hierarchically between the physical stance and the intentional stance. A second consequence is that a new distinction can be made between types of entities in Dennett's approach. We call entities to which the intentional designer stance is applied tools and entities to which the teleological design stance is applied instruments, leading to a differentiated understanding of, in particular, technical artefacts.

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DOI 10.1007/s11229-011-9885-9
The design stance and its artefacts
Pieter E. Vermaas ·Massimiliano Carrara ·
Stefano Borgo ·Pawel Garbacz
Received: 17 May 2010 / Accepted: 21 January 2011
© The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract In this paper we disambiguate the design stance as proposed by Daniel C.
Dennett, focusing on its application to technical artefacts. Analysing Dennett’s work
and developing his approach towards interpreting entities, we show that there are two
ways of spelling out the design stance, one that presuppose also adopting Dennett’s
intentional stance for describing a designing agent, and a second that does not. We
argue against taking one of these ways as giving the correct formulation of the design
stance in Dennett’s approach, but propose to replace Dennett’s original design stance
by two design stances: an intentional designer stance that incorporates the inten-
tional stance, and a teleological design stance that does not. Our arguments focus
on descriptions of technical artefacts: drawing on research in engineering, cognitive
psychology and archaeology we show that both design stances are used for describing
technical artefacts. A first consequence of this disambiguation is that a design stance,
P. E. Ver ma as ( B
)
Philosophy Department, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
e-mail: p.e.vermaas@tudelft.nl
M. Carrara
Department of Philosophy, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
e-mail: massimiliano.carrara@unipd.it
S. Borgo
Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy
e-mail: borgo@loa-cnr.it
S. Borgo
KRDB, Free University of Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy
P. Garbacz
Department of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland
e-mail: garbacz@kul.lublin.pl
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in terms of interpretative assumptions and in terms of the pragmatic considerations
for adopting it, stops to be a stance that comes hierarchically between the physical
stance and the intentional stance. A second consequence is that a new distinction can
be made between types of entities in Dennett’s approach. We call entities to which
the intentional designer stance is applied tools and entities to which the teleological
design stance is applied instruments, leading to a differentiated understanding of, in
particular, technical artefacts.
Keywords Design stance ·Technical artefact ·Daniel C. Dennett ·Engineering ·
Cognitive psychology ·Archaeology ·Classes of artefacts ·Instrument ·Tool
1 Introduction
Technical artefacts slowly make their way towards a more centre position in philoso-
phy. They have surfaced occasionally in the limelight, say in the work of Francis Bacon,
Julian de la Mettrie and Martin Heidegger, but received more systematic analysis only
within the specialist niches of philosophy of technology and science and technology
studies. The emerging interest is partly motivated by more traditional philosophical
projects, such as analyses of the mind, biological organisms, and art and fiction. Yet
artefacts are increasingly also considered in their own right, leading to a fusion of
research originating from distant fields such as philosophy of technology, science and
technology studies, engineering design, cognitive psychology and metaphysics.1This
emerging interest therefore poses an interesting challenge to philosophy for collab-
orating across traditional disciplinary divisions, and has the promise to advance our
understanding of technical artefacts, to the benefit of all disciplines involved.
In this paper we take up the sketched promise by revisiting the work by Daniel
C. Dennett on the design stance with the aim of developing it and of showing that the
type of entities that is in philosophy typically lumped together under the general label
of technical artefact may be analysed as consisting of different types. Specifically we
consider Dennett’s design stance as defined and described by examples in his (1978,
1987,1990,1995). We show that there are two ways of spelling out this design stance,
a teleological way that does not presuppose also adopting Dennett’s intentional stance,
and a second intentional way that does include the intentional stance. We argue against
taking one of these ways as the correct formulation of the design stance in Dennett’s
approach, but propose to disambiguate Dennett’s original design stance and to replace
it by a teleological design stance that does not incorporate the intentional stance,
and an intentional designer stance that does. Our argument focuses on the descrip-
tion of technical artefacts. Drawing on research in engineering, cognitive psychology
and archaeology we show that both design stances are used for describing technical
artefacts, establishing that each is needed in Dennett’s approach towards interpreting
entities.
1Recent work on artefacts can be found in volumes by Costall and Dreier (2006)andMargolis and Laurence
(2007), in special issues by Kroes and Meijers (2002,2006)andHoukes and Vermaas (2009a), and in mono-
graphs by Baird (2004), Elder (2004), Lewens (2004), Verbeek (2005), Baker (2007), Thomasson (2007)
and Houkes and Vermaas (2010). Earlier work includes Hilpinen (1992,1993)andDipert (1993).
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We argue that by the disambiguation of the design stance the relations between
the different stances in Dennett’s approach can be clarified. In Dennett’s original
formulation it is unclear whether the design stance makes weaker or stronger interpre-
tative assumption than the intentional stance. When disambiguated, it can be observed
that the teleological design stance makes weaker assumptions than the intentional
stance, and that the intentional designer stance makes stronger assumptions. In Den-
nett’s original formulations the pragmatic considerations to replace one stance by
another in describing an entity seems linear: one switches from the physical stance
to the (original) design stance because the latter may be more efficient in predicting
the behaviour of an entity, and one switches from this design stance to the intentional
design stance because the latter may be even more efficient. Conversely, when pre-
dictions by the intentional stance are inaccurate, one falls back on the design stance
for describing an entity, and when the design-stance predictions are in accurate, one
falls back to the physical stance. When disambiguated, the pragmatic ordering of the
stances becomes more complex. Finally we use the disambiguation to draw a distinc-
tion between two types of entities: entities to which the teleological design stance
is applied, which we call instruments, and entities to which the intentional designer
stance is applied, which we call tools. The proposed disambiguation thus leads to a
more differentiated understanding of entities in Dennett’s approach. The distinction
between instruments and tools can moreover be related to a more liberal and stricter
approach in philosophy towards demarcating technical artefacts.
In Sect. 2we introduce Dennett’s three stances and in Sect. 3we describe the
ambiguity in Dennett’s writing. In Sect. 4we consider existing conceptual analy-
ses and criticisms of the design stance in philosophy. In Sects. 5and 6we review
empirical work on artefacts in engineering design methodology, cognitive psychology
and archaeology for showing that technical artefacts are described by both the teleo-
logical design stance and the intentional designer stance. Then, extending Dennett’s
approach, we introduce in Sect. 7the teleological design stance and the intentional
designer stance in more detail and discuss the ordering of the stances by their interpre-
tative assumptions and by the pragmatic considerations for adopting them. In Sect. 8
we introduce the distinction between instruments and tools.
2 Dennett’s three stances
Consider any entity whose behaviour you are interested in to predict. Such an entity
could be represented as a simple object, as for example a rock or a spoon, or as a very
complex entity, as a suricat, a smartphone or a human being. In Dennett’s view we
use three stances to describe these entities for predicting their behaviour: a physical
stance, a design stance and an intentional stance.
When we adopt the physical stance towards an entity “our predictions are based
on the actual physical state of the particular [entity], and are worked out by applying
whatever knowledge we have of the laws of nature” (Dennett 1978,p.4).
The second stance is the design stance. With this stance we predict the behaviour
of an entity by appeal to the assumption that it is a designed entity. For Dennett this
assumption of design means that the entity can be broken up in parts that have specific
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functions, where function is a “purpose-relative or teleological” notion. Predictions
by means of the design stance are then generated by the assumptions that the parts
are optimally suited for performing the functions assigned to them, and that these
functional parts are not malfunctioning. Paraphrasing Dennett, if one knows exactly
the functions of each part of a radio, one can give a design-stance prediction of how
the radio behaves when assuming that each part functions properly (1978,p.4).
The third stance is the intentional one. It is a stance where we predict what an entity
will do by appeal to the assumption that it is a rational agent with certain overarch-
ing goals and certain perceptual and behavioural capacities. Adopting the intentional
stance you first
decide to treat the [entity] whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent;
then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the
world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the
same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to
further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the
chosen set of beliefs and desires will in many—but not all—instances yield a
decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will
do. (Dennett 1987, p. 17, original emphasis)
The physical stance seems to be the one that can always be adopted for predicting
the behaviour of an entity. But it is also the most cumbersome one. For the rock or
spoon it may be practically feasible but for entities as radio sets, suricats, smartphones
or human beings, application of the physical stance becomes quickly too complex.
For these latter entities it is more efficient to adopt the design stance or the intentional
stance. The choice which of the three stances to adopt for predicting the behaviour of
an entity is thus primarily a pragmatic choice, and not one based on a pre-established
position that the entity involved is actually a designed entity with functional parts or
an entity with beliefs on which it acts rationally.
Since for Dennett the choice to adopt one of the stances does not presuppose a
pre-established position about the actual nature of the entity, the design stance and
the intentional stance can be applied to all sorts of entities. The design stance can
be applied to radio sets but also to genes and biological entities in general, and the
intentional stance can be applied to persons but also to chess-playing computers, ani-
mals and Martians. A successful application of the design stance or of the intentional
stance to an entity—where success means that the generated predictions are accu-
rate—shows for Dennett that the entity can be taken as, respectively, a designed entity
or an agent (in Dennett’s sense). Moreover, the choice to adopt the design stance
also does not presuppose a pre-established position about the specific purpose and
functions of the entity concerned. And the choice to adopt the intentional stance does,
similarly, not presuppose a pre-established position about the specific goals and beliefs
of the agent. These purposes and functions, or goals and beliefs, are rather derived: a
successful application of the relevant stance to the entity advances specific purposes
and functions, or goals and beliefs (Vaesen and Van Amerongen 2008, p. 783). Taking
genes as molecules with specific interests (Dennett 1995, p. 328) and taking biologi-
cal entities generally as designed, as Dennett systematically does, is thus not due to a
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accuracy
accuracy
efficiency
efficiency
design
stance
predictions
intentional
stance
predictions
physical
stance
predictions
Fig. 1 Pragmatic ordering of Dennett’s original three stances
pre-established position about these entities having interests or functions, but due to
the successes of predicting their behaviour with the design stance.
3 The ordering of the stances
Dennett sometimes introduces his three stances in the order as we presented them above
(e.g., 1987, pp. 16–17) and this ordering also seems to be reflected by the pragmatic
considerations that govern their adoption. The physical stance can always be used for
predicting the behaviour of entities, but for some entities it is more efficient to arrive
at these predictions by applying the functional descriptions of the design stance. And
for some of those entities the efficiency of the design stance is in turn outclassed by the
intentional stance. Reversely, if for an entity for which one has chosen the intentional
stance one observes that the entity does not behave rationally, then one abandons the
intentional stance and can decide that adopting the design stance is more effective in
predicting its behaviour. And if an entity for which we have adopted the design stance
is observed to have parts that are malfunctioning, we switch to the physical stance
(Dennett 1978). In Fig. 1the ordering of the three original stances by means of these
pragmatic considerations is depicted schematically, where a normal arrow represents
the consideration to switch from one stance that produces accurate predictions about
an entity to another stance for acquiring more efficient predictions, and where a dotted
arrow represents the consideration to switch from one stance that does not produce
accurate predictions about an entity to another stance that does generate such accurate
predictions.
This ordering would also reflect the strength of the assumptions made in the stances.
When adopting the physical stance, one assumes uncontroversially that the behaviour
of entities can be described by their physical structure and the laws of physics. When
adopting the design stance, one adds a teleological perspective and ascribes purposes
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to entities. And when adopting the intentional stance, one assumes that the entities not
only have goals but are also agents with beliefs on which they act rationally.
A more detailed look shows however a more complicated relationship between
specifically the design stance and the intentional stance. Dennett argues at length
that when we determine the functions and purposes of artefacts, the intentions of the
designers are not relevant (e.g., Dennett 1990, pp. 184–186). He discusses cases in
which such intentions are indeed irrelevant, as when one buys an old-fashioned sad-
iron for using it as a doorstop rather than for ironing, or when one anchors a boat
with a large mainframe computer (1990, p. 184). Yet, in a number of the analyses and
examples that Dennett gives of the design stance, elements of the intentional stance are
mentioned as well. When he describes the design stance adopted for the chess-play-
ing computer, Dennett talks about deriving its behaviour on the basis of knowledge
of how the computer is designed (1978, p. 4). In principle one can understand this
knowledge as knowledge about the purposes and functions that the person who is
applying the design stance to the computer is imposing on the computer. But it is
more faithful to Dennett’s writing to understand this knowledge as knowledge of how
the chess-playing computer was intentionally designed by the software developers.
This second way of understanding introduces agents within the design stance, that is,
agents to whom, as part of applying the design stance to the computer, the intentional
stance is applied. Moreover, the analyses and examples in which Dennett refers to
designing agents are not limited to those concerning technical artefacts. When consid-
ering adopting the design stance for biological entities, Dennett talks frequently about
‘Mother Nature’ who is doing the designing. Again, in principle there is no need to
introduce this additional entity; when adopting the design stance for biological enti-
ties, it suffices to just assume that the biological entities have purposes and functions,
and then derive these purposes and functions as part of a successful prediction of their
behaviour. Yet Dennett typically does introduce Mother Nature. According to him we
apply the intentional stance to natural selection and then discover how she—Mother
Nature—has designed biological entities (1990, p. 187). In his (1995) Dennett seems to
include his intentional stance more explicitly into the design stance when he explains
the interpretation of biological entities as if they were technical artefacts. Dennett
does this by means of the engineering technique of reverse engineering, and describes
reverse engineering of a technical artefact in turn as a reconstruction of the reasons the
original engineers had when designing the artefact (pp. 212–213). Hence, according to
Dennett’s writing, when adopting the design stance for describing an entity, one puts
a teleological-functional perspective on the entity and assumes in a number of central
cases—chess-playing computers, biological entities—the presence of an agent who
designed that entity. This observation supports an understanding of the design stance
as one in which the intentional stance is included, and would, in terms of interpretative
assumptions, put the design stance third in row, since then application of the design
stance implies the assumption that the entity concerned has a purpose and functional
parts, and the assumptions that come with the intentional stance that there is a designer
of the entity who has goals and beliefs, and acts rationally on the basis thereof.
One way to resolve this issue how to order the stances is to argue in favour of one
particular understanding of Dennett’s design stance, be it the weaker one in which
application of the design stance means that it is only assumed that an entity has parts
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with functions relative to some purpose, or be it the stronger one in which application
of the design stance means also assuming that the entity has been designed by an
agent for these functions and purposes. A second way to resolve the issue is to take the
confusion about how to understand Dennett’s design stance as an indication that his
approach actually involves two design stances, which should both be articulated and
accepted as separate design stances. In this paper we argue for this second resolution,
and for this we focus in Sects. 5–6on the description of technical artefacts. We show
that for technical artefacts both design stances are in use, demonstrating that rejecting
one of them would limit the domain of application of Dennett’s approach towards
describing entities.
Let us now reserve the name ‘teleological design stance’ for the weaker version
of the design stance, and introduce the name ‘intentional designer stance’ for the
stronger intentional version. By accepting both within Dennett’s approach the order-
ing of the stances with respect to the strength of the interpretative assumptions made,
becomes again clear: the physical stance comes first since it does not involve additional
assumptions; the teleological design stance second because it adds the teleological per-
spective of purposes and functions to the description of entities; the intentional stance
is third with the assumption that entities are also agents with beliefs on which they
act rationally; and finally one has the intentional designer stance where one adopts the
teleological perspective and the assumption that this perspective is due to a rational
agent who has goals and beliefs and acts rationally. In Sect. 7we continue discussing
the two design stances and return to the ordering of the resulting four stances, in part
because the pragmatic considerations for adopting one of the stances now becomes
more complicated, and less linear as depicted in Fig. 1. But first we turn to philosophy,
in which Dennett has been criticised under the presupposition that there is only one
correct formulation of the design stance.
4 Philosophy
In philosophical analyses of Dennett’s accounts three main positions on the relation
between the design stance and the other stances have been developed:
•Eliminativism: the design stance is eliminable or reducible either to the physical
stance or to the intentional stance.
•Primitivism: the design stance is irreducible and is assumed within the intentional
stance.
•Intentionalism: the design stance presupposes the intentional stance applied to a
designer.
Baker (1987) argued for eliminativism starting from the ontological observation
that some features of entities are independent of one’s predictive strategies, say the
feature of water to freeze at 0◦C, and that other features are not, say the feature that
someone has when believing that water freezes at 0◦C. Baker argues that this distinc-
tion can be motivated by Dennett’s ontology (pp. 152–153) and then uses it to criticise
Dennett. Rationality, for instance, is in Dennett’s approach a feature that is attributed
to agents by the intentional stance. So, rationality is a stance-dependent feature of
agents, yet “Dennett often implies that it is a stance-independent feature, a feature that
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an organism has per se, without regard to the predictive strategies of others.” (1987,
p. 159)
In the case of the design stance Baker focuses in her arguments on design features of
entities, being those features that warrant the application of the design stance to these
entities. One of these features is that the entity concerned does not malfunction (or has
been broken down). For artefacts the concept of malfunction is according to Baker a
stance-dependent feature of the artefacts: it is dependent on the intentional stance since
it refers to the intentions of the designers or users of the artefacts. This stance-depen-
dence of malfunction now creates a dilemma in Dennett’s approach when considering
organisms to which the design stance is applied. If for organisms, malfunction is also
a feature that is dependent on the intentional stance, then the features that warrant
the application of the design stance to organisms (and artefacts) depend on the inten-
tional stance, which counters Dennett’s view that designs of organisms evolve by
natural selection, and which makes that “the design level tends to collapse into the
intentional.” (1987, p. 161) If, however, malfunction is a stance-independent feature
of organisms, a uniform treatment of organisms and artefacts is lost, and restoring
that uniformity by taking design features such as malfunction stance-independent for
both organisms and artefacts makes that “the design level tends to collapse into the
physical” (p. 161).
The second position on the design stance, primitivism, has been put forward by
Millikan (2000). Millikan starts by spelling out what she takes as the design stance,
after noting an ambiguity in Dennett’s proposal. This ambiguity is the following one:
when applying the design stance to an entity, one can proceed from a description of
the actual dispositions of the entity, or from a description of the dispositions it is
supposed to have by its design, where design may refer to an intentional design as
produced by designers or to natural design as produced by natural selection. Millikan
opts for the second way: “[t]he design stance is the predictive stance that moves from
what [an entity] was designed to do to a prediction that it will do that thing” (p. 57;
original emphasis). Application of the design stance to an entity refers in this way to
the origin of the entity in designing. Yet, a similar reference is absent in the way in
which Dennett uses the intentional stance. The intentional stance can be applied to an
entity on the basis of its actual dispositions only: if the entity exhibits behaviour that
can be interpreted as rational behaviour, then it may be taken as an entity exhibiting
rational behaviour, independently of what internal mechanisms are involved in this
behaviour.
For Millikan this way of ascribing rationality to entities is too liberal and not provid-
ing support for the projectability of rationality, say from current behaviour dispositions
to future dispositions. “[I]f some actual organism had acquired fully rational dispo-
sitions to behavior totally by accident, and if the observed appearances of rationality
resulting from these dispositions were known by us to have resulted from accident,
we would be foolish indeed to project these appearances into the future” (2000, p. 61).
Something more is needed and for Millikan it is the design stance: “from design for
rationality, one can infer real dispositions to rationality patterns, as opposed to mere
temporary illusions of such dispositions. It thus appears that the intentional stance
must be underwritten by the design stance, rather than vice versa” (pp. 61–62).
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The last position of intentionalism has been advanced by Ratcliffe (2001). For
Ratcliffe the intentional stance is more fundamental than the design stance: “the inten-
tional stance is not simply causally or epistemologically prior to the design stance but is
also conceptually prior. Dennett’s ‘design stance’ view of nature is simply unthinkable
without a preconditional intentional stance” (p. 35).
Ratcliffe observes that a stance is a device that makes possible an interpretation,
for example, an interpretation of the natural world as designed. For Dennett this
interpretation is quite simply biology. But Ratcliffe observes: “[b]iology needs the
concept of function and adaptation, and you get them from a construal of Mother
Nature as a designer. Given this design construal, you can then understand intention-
ality in terms of biological function or design” (pp. 35–36). If this is so, design is
only perceptible to one who employs the intentional stance. Then “the design stance
is in fact ultimately derived from the intentional stance as opposed to the latter being
a ‘subspecies’ of the former” (p. 36).
In general, for Ratcliffe, if we apply the design stance to an entity, then we should
apply the intentional stance with respect to the designer of that entity. Ratcliffe takes
this position from Fodor who argues that: “[d]esign (as opposed to mere order) requires
a designer. Not theologically [..] but just conceptually. You can’t explain intention-
ality by appealing to the notion of design because the notion of design presupposes
intentionality” (Fodor 1996, p. 252; original emphasis).
Although it is not our aim to defend Dennett’s approach to his critics, the disam-
biguation of Dennett’s design stance in terms of the teleological design stance and the
intentional designer stance as defined in the previous section, may provide elements
to find a way out of some of the charges made. Disambiguation seems not to provide
the means to defuse Baker’s dilemma and her plea for eliminativism. The teleological
design stance and the intentional designer stance are both meant to apply to techni-
cal artefacts and biological items uniformly, so for each of these stances, Baker can
set up her dilemma. But take, secondly, Millikan’s primitivism. The design stance
that Millikan considers in her argument may on our disambiguation be taken as the
teleological design stance as applied to organisms that display rational behaviour. Her
conclusion can then be accepted, as Dennett (2000, p. 342) does, and be interpreted as
revealing merely that the intentional stance presupposes the teleological design stance,
not that the intentional stance presupposes both the teleological design stance and the
intentional designer stance. This interpretation is coherent with the ordering of the
stances as we argue for in Sect. 7. Consider, finally, Ratcliffe’s arguments for inten-
tionalism. From our perspective his arguments are showing the obvious conclusion
that assumptions about the intentions of designing agents are part of the intentional
designer stance. Yet, for the teleological design stance this conclusion need not be
drawn.
5 Engineering
When one considers how in engineering technical artefacts are described, it seems
that one is bound to accept intentionalism as defended by Ratcliffe. When in engi-
neering a technical artefact is taken as designed, this straightforwardly means that it
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is assumed that the artefact has been intentionally designed by an agent. Moreover,
when engineering functions are ascribed to parts of technical artefacts, these ascrip-
tions presuppose designing agents, as we argue in this section. Hence, when spelling
out Dennett’s design stance, then engineering practices point towards the position that
it should be unambiguously understood as what we have called the intentional designer
stance. Yet, even in engineering one cannot suffice with only this intentional designer
stance; some engineering descriptions involving functions are more accurately under-
stood as descriptions that do not refer to designing agents. Hence, Dennett’s design
stance is better disambiguated and replaced by both the teleological design stance and
the intentional designer stance.
Functions are used ubiquitously in engineering: technical entities such as devices
and processes are in general described in structural and functional terms. Functions
play specifically a pivotal role in methodologies for designing, redesigning and reverse
engineering, and in descriptions of product architecture and engineering knowledge
bases. Yet, despite its pivotal role, consensus on what is meant by function has not
yet been achieved in engineering: a recent survey, for instance, listed 18 different
meanings (Erden et al. 2008). In Borgo et al. (2009,2010) we have given forma-
lised definitions, grounded in a foundational ontology for information systems, of
two of the main engineering meanings of function. These two meanings (identified in
Chandrasekaran 2005)aretheFunctional Representation meaning of Chandrasekaran
and Josephson (2000) and the Functional Modelling meaning exemplified by Stone and
Wood (2000). The formalisation of especially the Functional Representation meaning
revealed references to designing agents, which can be made explicit already in the
informal description of this meaning.
Chandrasekaran and Josephson (2000) actually consider a range of engineering
meanings of the concept of function, which they analyse as mixtures of two extremes: a
device-centric meaning of function, which is a desired effect by a behaviour of an entity
described in terms of that behaviour, and an environment-centric meaning, which is
that desired effect described in terms of elements external to the entity. Chandrasekaran
and Josephson take the concept of behaviour of an entity as neutral with respect to the
intentions of agents but readily acknowledge that also this term is dependent on the
agent who models the entity by focussing on some behaviour and ignoring other (p.
170). Hence, by taking functions as desired effects of behaviour of entities, functions
refer in two ways to intentions of agents: to those of the modeller of the entity and to
those who desire the effects. An example Chandrasekaran and Josephson use is that of
an electrical buzzer: its device-centric function is making sound and its environment-
centric function is to enable a visitor to inform a person in a house that someone is at
the door. These functions as effects are desired by the users and by the engineers who
designed the buzzer, and these functions refer to a modelling of the behaviour of the
buzzer as selected by the designing engineers.
Stone and Wood (2000) take a function of an entity as a relationship between the
input and output flows of energy, material and signals of the entity, where this relation-
ship has the purpose of performing an overall task as set by customers (p. 359). By this
reference to the task of the entity, functions of entities can be reconstructed as inten-
tionally determined by designers to meet the tasks as set by customers. An example
is now a popcorn popper, which has the customer task to pop corn, and whose overall
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function is determined by designers as transforming a flow of corn kernels, electric-
ity, butter and an on-off signal, to a flow of popcorn, thermal energy and acoustic
energy.
Assuming that the discussed meanings of function are representative of engineer-
ing, it follows that taking an entity as having parts with functions implies in engi-
neering that one is referring to intentions of designing agents. The conclusion is then
that in engineering, Dennett’s design stance presupposes the intentional stance. This
conclusion may be avoided by denying that the functions in Dennett’s design stance are
the functions as considered in engineering, but such a strategy is in contradiction with
his references to (reverse) engineering when Dennett explains his design stance. In
engineering Dennett’s design stance is thus to be spelled out as the intentional designer
stance, that is, as a design stance that refers to intentionally designing agents. Yet, this
conclusion cannot always be drawn in engineering. As announced in the beginning of
this section, there are cases in which functional descriptions of entities in engineer-
ing do not refer to designing agents. Such cases include engineering explanations of
why entities display or have displayed specific behaviour, such as after an accident of
some sort. When an explosion takes place in a gas tank, an engineering investigation
may reveal that an electrical switch, by giving a spark, functioned as a detonator. And
when it is not a criminal investigation or a case of reverse engineering, it is not part of
the explanation that an agent designed the switch for having the engineering function
to detonate the gas. Such explanations can therefore be taken as ones in which the
teleological design stance is applied. Given that engineering functions are referring to
designer intentions, it has however now to be defended that in functional descriptions
in the sketched explanations, engineers do not assign engineering functions to the parts
of those entities. That this defence is possible can be made plausible by arguing that in,
say, the explanation of the gas explosion engineers conclude that the switch functioned
as a detonator but does not have detonating as its proper engineering function. We
will not give this defence, but define in Sect. 7what type of functions engineers assign
in such explanations. Pending this definition, the conclusion is that in engineering
descriptions both the intentional designer stance and the teleological design stance is
applied, providing support to disambiguate Dennett’s design stance in terms of these
two more precise design stances, rather than taking one of them as the only correct
one.
6 Cognitive psychology and archaeology
Some of Dennett’s examples of how we describe technical artefacts already show that
in some cases we do determine the functions and purposes of artefacts without referring
to the intentions of designers. Examples like the mentioned sad-iron used as a doorstop
are sufficient proof that the behaviour of some technical artefacts can be predicted on
the basis of merely the assumptions that they have purposes and their parts functions,
where the functions are optimal for letting the artefacts realise their purposes. Hence
we indeed can apply the teleological design stance to technical artefacts. This claim
does however not hold in general, as recently argued by Vaesen and Van Amerongen
(2008) using the results of research in cognitive psychology and practices in archae-
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ology. They considered two ways of understanding Dennett’s claims: as descriptive
claims that persons, in artefact hermeneutics, reason in terms of optimality, rather than
in terms of intentions; and as normative claims that persons, in artefact hermeneutics,
should reason in terms of optimality, rather than in terms of intentions (2008, p. 782).
Vaesen and Van Amerongen argue that both these ways are untenable.
For challenging the descriptive way of understanding Dennett’s claims, Vaesen and
Van Amerongen turn to cognitive psychology, in which they discern an essentialist
tradition in describing how persons infer what artefacts are for, and an anti-essen-
tialist tradition. Their conclusion is that within both traditions “it is safe to say that,
according to cognitive psychology, designer’s intentions play an important role in the
interpretation of artifacts—the main topic of disagreement [between proponents of
the two traditions] being exactly how important” (pp. 786–787). In the various exper-
iments described, ranging from artefacts made for one reason but used for another,
or artefacts made for one reason but not quite suited for that job, the original inten-
tions of the designers of artefacts were shown to be part of the determination of what
the artefacts are for. According to the essentialist tradition persons have a cognitive
capacity to categorise and reason about artefacts on the basis of the original inten-
tions of the designer. And although persons may categorise artefacts differently than
by original intent according to the anti-essentialist tradition, designer’s intentions are
still an important feature for the categorisation of artefacts in that second tradition,
although “not the only one” (p. 786).
For assessing the normative way of understanding Dennett’s claims, Vaesen and
Van Amerongen consider archaeology, in which functions of artefacts are determined
by methodological rules. It is shown that archaeologists indeed formulate rules to
reasoning in terms of optimality when discovering the functions of artefacts. Yet,
Vaesen and Van Amerongen also show that these rules have their limitations and may
lead to controversial conclusions. These limitations are illustrated with the determi-
nation of the function of Babylonian vessels that may be used as galvanic cells and
have therefore been called Babylonian batteries. On the basis of optimality consider-
ations the conclusion may indeed be that these vessels have the function of providing
electricity. This conclusion is however controversial, the alternative hypothesis being
that the vessels were containers of sacred scrolls. This latter conclusion about the
function of these vessels can however (only) be argued for when also the intentions
of the Babylonians are taken into account. The use of the metals of iron and copper in
the vessels, which makes them suitable as batteries, is then explained by referring to
the beliefs of the creators of the vessels that these metals protected the scrolls against
divine terror (2008, pp. 788–789). Hence, in archaeology functions of artefacts may
be determined not only on the basis of ascribed functions and optimality consider-
ations but also by taking into account the intentions of the agents who designed or
constructed the artefacts.
These results again establish that Dennett’s design stance should not be spelled out
as either the teleological design stance or the intentional designer stance. Both design
stances are in use when describing technical artefacts, supporting the position that
Dennett’s design stances should be disambiguated.
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7 Four stances
Let us take stock. In Sect. 3we analysed the design stance as defined and described
by Dennett. We argued that it is unclear whether or not this design stance should
be understood as including assumptions about designing agents. Two responses were
identified. One can argue in favour of one particular understanding of Dennett’s design
stance, or disambiguate and replace Dennett’s design stance by two: a teleological
design stance in which no references are made to designing agents; and an intentional
designer stance in which such references are included. In Sect. 4we reviewed philo-
sophical analyses and criticisms of Dennett’s design stance in which it is presupposed
that there is only one way of spelling it out, and showed that disambiguation pro-
vides elements to resolve some of the criticisms. In Sects. 5and 6we argued for this
response of disambiguation by showing that for technical artefacts both the teleological
design stance and the intentional designer stance are in use. Hence, replacing Den-
nett’s original design stance by these two design stances makes Dennett’s approach
empirically more faithful to how agents actually predict the behaviour of entities. Yet,
for letting the disambiguation be conclusive we still have to fix a concept of function
for the teleological design stance such that references to designing agents are indeed
absent in that stance—functions may refer to designing agents, as argued in Sect. 5,
and those references should be avoided for the teleological design stance. We carry
out this task by adopting for both the teleological design stance and the intentional
designer stance the concept of function as introduced by Searle (1995).
According to Searle (1995, pp. 13–23) functions are capacities that agents assign
to parts of entities relative to values or purposes these agents impose on these entities
(typically survival and reproduction for biological entities, and typically practical uses
for artefacts). When this concept of function is adopted in the two new design stances,
one has to spell out which agents are involved in the assignment of functions. This can
be done in such a way that in the teleological design stance no assumptions are made
about the intentions of other agents, whereas in the intentional designer stance such
assumptions are made. Moreover, one can obtain an analysis of the functions assigned
in the intentional designer stance that is by and large consistent with assuming that
these functions are engineering functions. Let us start with the teleological design
stance. The functions and purposes of entity xand its parts can within this stance be
taken as functions and purposes that are assigned relative to values or goals of the agent
ywho applies the teleological design stance to x. Taking parts of entities as having
functions then does not imply a reference to other agents; there are only references to
the goals and values of the agent ythat applies the teleological design stance. When,
for instance, the light switch that sparked the accidental gas explosion is function-
ally described as a detonator, it is not assumed that the switch has been designed by
an agent for this function. Consider second the intentional designer stance. Now the
functions and purposes of entities and their parts should not be taken as functions and
goals that the agent ywho applies the intentional designer stance assigns relative to his
or her own goals; rather yassumes that these functions and purposes are the ones that
other agents zhave assigned to these entities and parts relative to their values or goals.
Hence, the functions and purposes of entities are now referring to other agents z:the
agent ywho applies the intentional designer stance to, say, a buzzer, assumes that its
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function of making sound is the function the designer zof the buzzer has assigned to
this buzzer.
So, having fixed the relevant concepts of function, Dennett’s original design stance
can indeed be replaced by the teleological design stance and the intentional designer
stance. As a result Dennett’s approach specifies four stances for predicting the behav-
iour of entities of any type. The physical and intentional stances are still the ones as
defined and described by Dennett. In the teleological design stance a person ypredicts
the behaviour of an entity xby appeal to the assumption that xis an entity with a
purpose and with parts that have functions that are all assigned by person y.Inthe
intentional designer stance a person ypredicts the behaviour of an entity xby appeal
to the assumption that xis an entity with a purpose and with parts that have functions,
and by appeal to the assumption that this purpose of xand the functions are assigned
by an entity zthat person ydescribes as a rational agent with certain overarching goals
and certain perceptual and behavioural capacities.
In terms of the strength of their assumptions the four stances again can be ordered
linearly. When adopting the physical stance, one assumes uncontroversially that the
behaviour of an entity xcan be described by its physical structure and the laws of phys-
ics. When adopting the teleological design stance, one adds a teleological perspective
to the description of the entity. In the intentional stance the assumption is accepted that
this entity xis also an agent with beliefs on which it acts rationally. And the intentional
designer stance involves the teleological perspective for x, the assumption that there
is a second entity z, and the assumption that zis a rational agent.
This linear ordering of the four stances is however not reflected anymore by the prag-
matic considerations that govern their adoption. With the teleological design stance
taking the place of Dennett’s original design stance one has pragmatically still the
linear ordering between the physical stance, the teleological design stance and the
intentional stance, similar as the ordering depicted in Fig. 1in Sect. 3. The physical
stance can still always be used for predicting the behaviour of entities. For some enti-
ties these physical-stance predictions are laborious, and switching to the teleological
design stance may lead to more efficient successful predictions. And for some enti-
ties the teleological-design-stance predictions may be outclassed in efficiency by the
intentional stance. Conversely, if the predictions by the intentional design stance are
not accurate, one falls back to the teleological design stance, and if these teleolog-
ical-design-stance predictions are not accurate as well, one may switch back to the
physical stance.
With the intentional designer stance added to the picture, new pragmatic changes
become available relative to this linear ordering. When teleological-design-stance pre-
dictions of the behaviour of an entity are not accurate, one need not necessarily fall
back to the physical stance; the intentional designer stance may be an alternative as
well. Take the example of the Babylonian vessels. Application of the teleological
design stance to these vessels leads by optimality considerations to the prediction that
they are for generating electricity. Rejecting these predictions, more accurate ones are
generated by the intentional designer stance. A question that now emerges is when one
should switch back from the teleological design stance to the physical stance or when
it makes sense to try the intentional designer stance. A first answer could be as follows.
In the teleological design stance the purposes assigned to entities and the functions
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assigned to their parts are assigned by the predictor yon the basis of optimality con-
siderations about the entities and the parts. These optimality considerations are based
on y’s knowledge about what entities and their parts can do. If now the predictions
generated by means of these assigned purposes and functions are not successful, and
there are others purposes and functions available that, when assigned to entities, do
lead to successful predictions, then it makes sense to switch to the intentional designer
stance provided that these alternative purposes and functions can be assigned on the
basis of optimality considerations based on the knowledge of the assumed designer
z. If, in contrast, such other purposes and functions are not available, one falls back
from the teleological design stance to the physical stance.
When one has successful intentional-designer-stance predictions for an entity, and
teleological-design-stance predictions are as successful, the latter are more efficient:
describing a radio set teleologically by means of purposes and functions an assumed
designer zwould assign to the set is more laborious than describing the radio set
by means of purposes and functions one assigns oneself. Starting from an intentional
designer stance description of an entity x, a purely intentional description of that entity
is more efficient as well. Consider the behaviour of cellular automata. Predicting their
behaviour by means of their functional make-up and the intentions for which they
were designed is possible but less efficient than predicting their behaviour by assum-
ing they are intentional entities. Again the question emerges when one should try to
replace an intentional-designer-stance description with one by the teleological design
stance or one by the intentional stance. Complexity may be a criterion, where a more
complex functional description of the entity can be taken as a reason to first try the
intentional stance. When the predictions by means of the intentional designer stance
are not accurate, then one can reconsider the beliefs and goals assigned to the assumed
designer z, yet when that is not working, one ultimately has to fall back on the physical
stance.
efficiency
accuracy
accuracy
efficiency
teleological
design
stance
predictions
accuracy
efficiency
intentional
stance
predictions
accuracy
efficiency
physical
stance
predictions
intentional
designer
stance
predictions
Fig. 2 Pragmatic ordering of the four stances
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The ordering of the four stances by means of the pragmatic considerations that
govern their adoption is depicted in Fig. 2. The relations included are probably only
the main ones. Given that one can have sequences in the switches between the stances,
other relations may be included. One can, for instance, for an entity decide that a tel-
eological-design-stance description is more efficient than a physical-stance descrip-
tion, and then conclude that an intentional-stance description is even better, arriving
at an (indirect) “more efficient relation” between the physical stance and the inten-
tional stance. More interesting is switching back from an inaccurate intentional-stance
description to an intentional-designer-stance description. The behaviour of a software
agent on internet may be irrational, accept if one assumes that the software has been
designed by an agent with particular beliefs: for a European customer it is typically
strange why software agents on Internet ask separately for the country in which one
lives and the state in which one lives.
A final remark is that, as with all of Dennett’s stances, one merely presupposes in
the teleological design stance that xhas a purpose and its parts functions; one does
not presuppose what these purposes and functions are. Also in the intentional designer
stance the particular purpose and functions of x, and the particular goals and beliefs of
zare not assumed but determined and attuned such that the behaviour of xis predicted
successfully.
8 Instruments and tools
The proposed disambiguation of Dennett’s design stance does not alter Dennett’s
overall project; the now four stances still define how we describe entities as diverse as
rocks, suricats, smartphones and human beings, and they still give the means to iden-
tify how we understand such entities depending on what stance we adopt. If we adopt
the physical stance for an entity to predict its behaviour, then according to Dennett we
understand it as a physical entity. And if we adopt the intentional stance, we understand
it as an agent. The disambiguation allows us to make a distinction between two types
of what Dennett calls designed entities. If, in the original scheme, we adopt Dennett’s
original design stance for an entity, we understand it as a designed entity, where design
may refer to intentional design or to design by other processes or mechanisms, such as
natural selection. With the disambiguation, this understanding of entities as designed
becomes more detailed and conceptually clearer. If we successfully and efficiently
predict the behaviour of an entity with the intentional designer stance, then this entity
is understood as an entity designed intentionally by agents. And if we adopt the tele-
ological design stance for an entity, it is understood as an entity that has a functional
structure through natural selection or simply by its complexity. Let us now call entities
for which we adopt the teleological design stance instruments, and entities for which
we adopt the intentional designer stance tools.
The proposed disambiguation also does not alter Dennett’s position that we describe
biological items and technical artefacts in the same way; the disambiguation merely
details this position. The teleological design stance can be applied to biological organ-
isms, to their organs and to their behaviour when a researcher assigns purposes and
functions to the organisms on the basis of observation or of some theory such as
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evolutionary theory. And the teleological design stance can also be applied to technical
artefacts and their components as in the case of explanations of accidents. Similarly
the intentional designer stance can be applied to biological items by assuming that
they are designed by Mother Nature, just as that this stance can be applied to technical
artefacts. Disambiguation of Dennett’s original design stance provides in this way
the means to express the more daring elements of Dennett’s position. Whereas the
received view may be that biological items are physical entities or instruments because
intentions have no role in biological explanation, Dennett holds that biological items
are sometimes understood as tools as well, with Mother Nature as the designer. The
detail that disambiguation brings can also be used for making more explicitly how we
understand technical artefacts, an issue to which we now turn.
In philosophy there are two approaches towards understanding the concept of tech-
nical artefact, or artefact in general. Technical artefacts are regularly understood as
entities that are made by agents like human beings, which implies that artefacts are
entities that come into existence when they are intentionally physically modified by
those agents (e.g., Dipert 1993;Houkes and Vermaas 2009b;Hilpinen 1992,1993 on a
strict interpretation). Prehistoric pieces of flint and modern submarines are on this first
approach instances of technical artefacts. Entities that are naturally occurring in the
sense of being the products of unintentional physical or biological processes are con-
sequently not technical artefacts, supporting the generally shared intuition that natural
objects are not technical artefacts, and vice versa. Natural entities like pebbles and
fallen tree trunks are on the first approach not technical artefacts. Given this approach
talking about made technical artefacts is redundant. Yet, with the second more liberal
approach it does make sense to talk about made technical artefacts. On that approach
intentionally modified entities are artefacts but so are entities that are merely intention-
ally selected by agents to serve practical purposes (e.g., Borgo and Vieu 2009;Hilpinen
1992,1993 on a liberal interpretation). Pebbles that are used as paperweights, and tree
trunks that fell over streams and are used for crossing those streams, are then technical
artefacts as well. These pebbles and tree trunks are often chosen as a starting point
for philosophical analyses of technical artefacts or of technology, and such analyses
sometimes remain on that level; an approach that may be somewhat limited from an
engineering or contemporary everyday point of view (Houkes and Vermaas 2009b).
Dipert’s (1993) analysis of artefacts provides a more sophisticated and encompassing
conceptual framework, giving a characterisation in which artefacts are defined in a
stricter manner and contrasted to other types of more liberal ‘technical’ entities.2With
our disambiguation we can now characterise the first stricter approach towards techni-
2Dipert (1993) discerns three types of artificial entities. Instruments form the broadest type and are entities
that have been “intentionally used in intentional activity.” More precisely, an instrument is an entity “one
of whose properties has been thought by someone to be means to an end and that has been intentionally
employed in this capacity”, where an object is thought as a means to an end if it is conceived to make a net
positive causal contribution to an end (pp. 24–25). Tools form a subtype of instruments: they are instruments
intentionally modified for contemplated use (p. 27). Artefacts form in turn a subtype of tools: artefacts are
intentionally modified tools “whose modified properties were intended by the agent to be recognized by an
agent at a later time as having been intentionally altered for that, or some other use” (pp. 29–30). In our
definitions we adopt Dipert’s distinction between instruments and tools in terms of intentional modifica-
tion, but do not adopt his emphasis on communication in his definition of artefacts. In fact we discern two
definitions of artefacts: as tools or as instruments and tools.
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cal artefacts as one in which only tools are taken as technical artefacts, and the second
more liberal approach as one in which both instruments and tools are acknowledged
as technical artefacts.
We end with three caveats. The first concerns the special case in which a designer
predicts the behaviour of an entity xthat s/he has designed her/himself. When such
predictions refer only to the purposes and functions as assigned by the designer, then
these predictions count as generated by the teleological design stance, and the conclu-
sion is that the entity xis by the designer ytaken as an instrument. This conclusion
is in conflict with the intuition that designed entities xare technical artefacts on any
approach towards understanding artefacts. This conflict is resolved when the predic-
tions by the designer yare referring not only to the purposes and functions as assigned
by y, but also to beliefs and knowledge of y, say to intentional choices to include
particular components, or to engineering rules and technical principles about how
technical structures work. These predictions may then be taken as generated by the
intentional designer stance, and the conclusion is that the entity xis a tool and thus a
technical artefact on any approach. For this two roles of agent y should be discerned:
the predictions of the agent yshould be analysable as predictions generated by yin
the role of predictor on the basis of purposes and functions assigned to the entity by
yin the role of designer.
The second caveat concerns predictions in which the predictor yrefers to an agent
zwho has merely intentionally selected the entity xfor a specific purpose. As these
predictions do not include functions of xas assigned by z, one is not dealing with
an application of one of our design stances. Hence, it is neither an instrument nor a
tool, and thus not a technical artefact on any of the two approaches to technical arte-
facts. This conclusion contradicts a view held by Hilpinen (1993, pp. 170–171), who
introduced the example of driftwood that became art after being selected and put on
exhibition by an artist. Hilpinen takes this driftwood as an artefact, yet on our analysis
it is not a technical artefact on any approach.3
The third caveat is a variation of the second that warrants more attention. It consists
of the case that the predictor yassumes that an agent zintentionally selected an entity
xfor a specific purpose and that zassigned functions to parts of x. Such predictions
should strictly speaking be taken as intentional designer stance predictions, which
turns the entity xinto one that is to be understood as a tool and which makes that x
is a technical artefact also on the stricter approach. Yet this entity xis not one that is
made in the sense of being intentionally physically modified by an agent—it is merely
intentionally selected. A way to avoid this conclusion is by arguing that the agent z
cannot be taken as a designing agent, since designing an entity implies that it has to be
made or assembled rather than merely selected. The advantage of this first response is
that entities that can be taken as tools are always made entities, which is in line with
the stricter approach that technical artefacts are always made entities. A disadvantage
is that one is eventually forced to introduce a fifth ‘intentional selector stance’ for
describing the considered case. A second response may consist of arguing that in this
case one should not use the intentional designer stance for predicting the behaviour
3When considering artistic artefacts, more liberal approaches are possible; artistic artefacts may even
include entities that are not assigned purposes (Carroll 1999, p. 148).
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of the selected entity, but the teleological design stance. If that leads to the same pre-
dictions, then the teleological design stance is the more efficient one, implying that x
is to be taken as an instrument after all. For pebbles and fallen tree trunks this argu-
ment may work: predictions about a pebble to be used as paperweights generated by
the intentional designer stance and the additional assumption that someone selected
the pebble as a paper weight, are in general also generated by the teleological design
stance.
9 Conclusions
In this paper we analysed in detail Daniel C. Dennett’s design stance and we argued
that there are two ways of spelling it out. The design stance can firstly be taken as one
in which the behaviour of an entity is predicted by appeal to the assumption that the
entity has a purpose and parts with functions that serve that purpose. Secondly it can
be understood as a stance in which the behaviour of an entity is predicted by appeal
to the assumption that the entity has a purpose and parts with functions that serve that
purpose, where the purpose and functions originate from an agent that has designed the
entity. We argued against taking one of these formulations as the only correct one, but
propose to replace Dennett’s original design stance by two design stances, reserving
the name teleological design stance for the design stance in which no references are
made to designing agents, and introducing intentional designer stance as a term that
refers to a design stance which includes such references.
Our arguments for incorporating both these design stances in Dennett’s approach
were drawn from engineering, cognitive psychology and archaeology, and consisted
in establishing that technical artefacts are describes with both the teleological design
stance and the intentional designer stance.
We have analysed the ordering of the stances with respect to their interpretative
assumptions and with respect to the pragmatic considerations that govern their adop-
tion. With the disambiguation of the design stance, the pragmatic ordering of the
stances stops to be a simple linear ordering.
Finally we have drawn a distinction between tools and instruments. Instruments
are entities for which we adopt the teleological design stance, and are understood
as entities with purposes and functions we assign in our descriptions of them. Tools are
entities for which we adopt the intentional designer stance, and are understood as enti-
ties with purposes and functions we assume in our descriptions to be assigned by
their designers. The distinction between tools and instruments can in turn be used to
distinguish between a strict and more liberal approach towards understanding entities
as technical artefacts.
Our analysis prompts further analysis. The focus in our arguments and discussions
of the design stance in Dennett’s approach has been on technical artefacts, and not on
biological items. This focus has been deliberate: we aimed to contribute to the emerg-
ing interest in technical artefacts and to show that this interest has promise for also more
traditional disciplines in philosophy. The distinction between tools and instruments
proved to be of use for a more differentiated understanding of technical artefacts. An
issue for further analysis is how our analysis and specifically the distinction between
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instruments and tools can lead to a more differentiated understanding in the biolog-
ical domain. Given Dennett’s insistence that we understand biological organisms as
designed by Mother Nature, turning those organisms into tools, a question may be
which biological items are understood as not designed, i.e., as instruments. Items that
come to mind are chemical processes within biological organisms, which at most may
be taken as selected by nature, or items that play a role in detrimental biological pro-
cesses, such as deceases and decay, and which can be taken as designed only when
Mother Nature may also be a diabolical agent. Yet, with these observations we have
stepped outside our domain of expertise.
A second issue concerns the way in which we have realised the disambiguation of
the design stance. We did so by replacing Dennett’s original design stance by the tel-
eological design and intentional designer stances. An alternative way to proceed is to
understand Dennett’s original design stance strictly as a stance in which no references
to intentional agents are made—that is, to interpret Dennett’s original design stance
as the teleological design stance—and then introduce the intentional designer stance
asacomposite of the design stance and the intentional stance. The physical, design
and intentional stances can then be seen as the basic stances by which we predict the
behaviour of entities, whereas the intentional designer stance is one that combines two
of these basic stances.
This alternative has the benefit that the number of basic stances is again three as
implied by Dennett’s original proposal, yet leads to the further project of considering
other stances that are composites of the physical, design and intentional stances. One
can, for instance, envisage a ‘design–design’ stance, in which one predicts the behav-
iour of an entity xby assumption that this behaviour of xis in some way related to
the behaviour of a second entity z, where the design stance is applied to both xand
z. For instance, when predicting the behaviour of a spider’s web or a beavers’ dam,
one can apply this design–design stance to both the web and the spider or to both
the dam and the beavers. Moreover, one can envisage that within combinations of the
design and intentional stances other relations between the entity xand the agent z
are considered than the relation of designing. In the third caveat at the end of Sect. 8
we already considered the possibility that an agent zmerely selects an entity xfor
a practical purpose; this case may be taken as an instance of an ‘intentional-design’
stance in which the relation of designing is replaced by that of selection. Entities to
which such an ‘intentional selector stance’ applies may be called means. The spec-
trum of composite stances one ends up with in this way may make Dennett’s stance
approach even conceptually clearer and empirically faithful to how agents actually
predict the behaviour of entities. In this paper we looked at descriptions of technical
artefacts in engineering, cognitive psychology and archaeology, but other areas have to
be considered as well, including developmental psychology, for instance, for incorpo-
rating the teleological stance that Kelemen (1999a,b,c) introduced for capturing how
children describe entities.
The spectrum of composite stances may also be useful for introducing further
types of entities in the technical domain. A design–design stance as applied to entities
that, informally, are used by animals, may be used to characterise and distinguish
animal instruments and animal tools. And by considering different relations between
the entity xand the agent zin the intentional designer stance, more fine-grained
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distinctions within the realm of technical artefacts may become available. Intentional
designing and intentional modifying may eventually be distinguished in terms of the
actions, beliefs and knowledge involved. The notion of tool may then be split in,
for instance, the subtypes of artisan tools (modified but not intentionally designed)
and of technological tools (modified and intentionally designed). And when accept-
ing an intentional selector stance, one can make a distinction between means that are
described by purposes and functions, and that are described by purposes only. It is
our conjecture that by developing the spectrum of stances more distinctions between
types of technical artefacts and technical entities can be drawn within philosophy. Yet
we readily acknowledge that this spectrum of composite stances makes the overall
picture more diffuse relative to Dennett’s small set of three stances for understanding
entities, and our set of four.
Acknowledgments We are grateful for helpful comments by Nathan Crilly, Krist Vaesen and two review-
ers on earlier drafts of this paper. This work has been developed in part within the Marie Curie EuJoint
project (IRSES 247503). Research by Pieter Vermaas was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for
Scientific Research (NWO).
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncom-
mercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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