From the fact that the manufacturing process produces a vast number of identical lamps Anders draws the conclusion that it is nonsense to attach any value to a separate, individual lamp. The reasoning is curious, for in order to understand what a mass-produced artifact means in human life one needs to analyze, not backwards to how it originated or what its conditions of possibility were, but forward to what it actually does. The artifact itself must be looked at, rather than reduced to its origin.
From Verbeek, “What Things Do”
Lally is the lord and master of design. This blog is pimping!
I agree with Anders that it’s silly to get attached to mass produced items because they’re not unique in origin. But human beings get attached to many things, some sillier than mass produced lamps. Now if Anders means economic value rather than emotional value, obviously mass produced lamps still need a price tag because their purpose has value, otherwise there is no incentive to produce them.