In this contribution we review our action-theoretical analysis of technical artefacts. This analysis emphasizes the emergence and subsistence of technical things by focusing on the designing, making and using of things. It presents a multi-facetted system of roles that agents can play reciprocally and relative to each other as well as to technical things. We distinguish familiar everyday roles, such as those of user and maker, as well as roles that are internal to engineering, such as those of product designer and manufacturer. In addition to distinguishing agentive roles, our analysis leads to various related conceptions of technical things: as functional items, as instruments, or as products. After reviewing our action-theoretical analysis, we present the central agentive roles and associated conceptions of technical things, and finally explore how our approach can be extended to the analysis of technical things as components of sociotechnical systems.

Avancierte Technikphilosophen haben die Frage nach der angemessenen Gegenstandsebene nicht als eine Alternative zwischen Ding oder System begriffen, sondern darauf insistiert, dass es sich um Aspekte des Technischen handelt, die nur in ihrem Zusammenhang verständlich werden. Das Bemühen des Schwerpunktthemas richtete sich darauf, die Konjunktion zu bestimmen, die zwischen Ding und System besteht.