[2][3] Biofact was introduced as early as 2001 by the German philosopher Nicole C. Karafyllis[4] although her book Biofakte published in 2003 is commonly used as reference for the introduction of the term.
[5] According to Karafyllis, the word biofact first appeared in a German article (entitled 'Biofakt und Artefakt') in 1943, written by the Austrian protozoologist Bruno M.
[7] With the term biofact, Karafyllis wants to emphasize that living entities can be highly artificial due to methods deriving from agriculture, gardening (e.g. breeding) or biotechnology (e.g. genetic engineering, cloning).
Primarily, the concept aims to argue against the common philosophical tradition to summarize all kinds of living beings under the category nature.
Karafyllis regards the inclusion of biofacts into a theory of techniques as a chance, to reformulate classic concepts of design and construction for defining the making of artifacts.
The term is also enabling philosophers to criticize some concepts in technoscience, where the union of scientific knowledge about nature and the technical creation of technonature is seen as progress in the political sense.