Making Objects and Events

Critical Notice: Thomas Sattig’s The Double Lives of Objects: An Essay in the Metaphysics of the ordinary world, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015

“…2.Sattig appeals to a much-expressed sentiment when he says ‘would it not be astonishing if reality [here the realm of all compounds] had a privileged domain of objects corresponding exactly to our rich and varied sortal concepts [here, those compounds that are ordinary objects]’ (25)? I have responded to this sentiment in my 2016 (196–197) but I would like to reiterate here that, understood correctly, it would not be astonishing at all. It is, for example, obvious that our rich and varied artefact sortals will correspond to which artifacts are found in reality.…”

“…Among those who deny (AC) are the myriad constitution theorists who accept the two distinct objects, paper and aeroplane, but deny there is a problem with their coinciding, so long as one (the paper) constitutes the other (the aeroplane). (Full disclosure: this is the view I advocate in my 2016. )…”

Hylomorphism without forms? A critical notice of Simon Evnine’s Making Objects and Events

“…The primary aim of Simon Evnine’s Making Objects and Events: A Hylomorphic Theory of Artifacts, Actions, and Organisms is to develop amorphic hylomorphism (Evnine 2016). This is a novel twist on hylomorphism.…”

Function essentialism about artifacts

“…Duchamp's ready-made can also be understood in this way. For a discussion of Duchamp's Fountain in particular, seeEvnine (2013). Fountain has a purpose as a urinal, but as an artwork (described by Duchamp himself as a sculpture), it lacks a function, or at the least lacks the function common to urinals.15 One suggestion from The Simpsons episode is that to be a professional artist one must have sold at least one artwork.16 Even if one denies that all artworks are artifacts, there are clear cases of artworks that are artifacts and that lack a function.…”