Los bioartefactos: viejas realidades que plantean nuevos problemas en la adscripción funcional

Resum

Among the different problems that philosophy of technology has to solve, the nature of technological artifacts is one of the most outstanding. There are several proposals that take into account the functional complexity of artifacts. This paper is committed to suggest some ideas about the nature of technological artifacts and, especially bio-artifacts, i.e., those entities produced by biotechnological processes. Some differences between physical and biological artifacts will be shown, trying to help at the same time to give another perspective to the functionalist discussion. The public perception about biotechnology could be enhanced with a new perspective about the long relationships between human beings and bio-technological artifacts.