Proceedings of ENACTIVE/07 4th International Conference on Enactive Interfaces

Grenoble, France, November 19th-22nd, 2007

Towards an Enactive Epistemology of Technics

Armen Khatchatourov John Stewart

Charles Lenay

COSTECH – UTC, France

E-mail: armen.khatchatourov@utc.fr, john.stewart@utc.fr, charles.lenay@utc.fr

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to introduce an

epistemological framework in which the technics are

considered from the very start in their intertwining

with the human. We show in which sense the enactive

paradigm can provide the basis for such an

epistemology.

Our thesis is that all technical artifacts, from stone

tools to cars to computers, are "enactive interfaces"

that mediate the structural coupling between human

beings and the world they live in, and hence bring

forth a particular world of lived experience.

The social dimension of this approach to technics is

also discussed.

1. Introduction

The basic scheme for considering enaction is the

dynamic sensory-motor coupling between an organism

and its environment.

The sensory inputs, S, are used to guide the actions

A; the actions A modify the environment and/or the

relation of the organism to its environment, and hence

modify in return the sensory inputs. This basic scheme

applies to all living beings. In the 1920’s von Uexküll

characterized “animal worlds” on the basis of sensori-

motor contingencies as they function in ecological

context.

What the world “is” for the organism amounts to

neither more nor less than the consequences of its

actions for its sensory inputs; or to its “sensori-motor

contingencies” [1]; and this in turn clearly depends on

the repertoire of possible actions. Without action, there

is no “world” and no perception.

There is a deep affinity between this approach, the

“enactive” approach of Varela [2], and the ecological

psychology [3] according to which perception is not a

matter of computational representation, but rather a

“direct” perception of “affordances”, i.e. potential

actions as such. This affinity lies, as we understand it,

in (a) a non-representationalist framework, and (b) in

the fact that “rules” or “laws of control” [3] or

“contingencies” [2] are not pre-given but emerge from

the interaction between an organism and its

environment. For the purposes of this article, we are

not going any further in the description of

(discrepancies between) these approaches, we rather

propose to consider what is specific to human beings.

One of the major characteristics of “human worlds” is

that the sensory-motor coupling is mediated by

technical artifacts, this leading to two radical

innovations (Fig. 1)

Figure 1. Mediated sensorimotor coupling.

Firstly, the range of possible sensory inputs and the

repertoire of possible actions are greatly increased,

without any limits other than the invention and

fabrication of new artifacts. This is clear for the new

possibilities of action which are created by tools, from

hammers to power-tools. It is also clear for instruments

- microscopes, telescopes, radios and so on resulting in

sensory inputs which are strictly impossible without the

devices in question.

More generally, but less obviously, technical artifacts

organize sensory experience: think of the world of

skier, which is impossible without the artifact. Even

when we are not actually skiing, our perception of the

mountain is determined by the possibility (i.e. virtual

action) of skiing and the correlative sensations. So this

first point can be understood more profoundly: in case

of contemporary humans, there hardly are any “natural”

perceptions or relations to the world: our sensory-

motor coupling is always fashioned, at least virtually,

by technical artifacts. [4]

Secondly, technical artifacts are not irremediably fixed

to the body. More precisely, technical artifacts exist in

two “modes”: “in hand” and “put down”. When a

technical artifact is “in hand”, being used, it becomes a

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prosthetic extension of the body; correlatively, the

artifact disappears from consciousness, and the

attention of the human subject is focused on the

“world” that comes about (think again of the “world of

the skier”, for example). Artifacts, like the body, are

normally “transparent” to the subject; as Heidegger [5]

has pointed out, they are only noticed when they are

dysfunctional (a wobbly hammer or a twisted ankle).

However, unlike biological organs, technical artifacts

can also be “put down”: separated from the body, they

can now become objects of attention. In this mode,

their objective physical proprieties can be perceived;

they can be invented, fabricated, repaired and so on [6].

The whole question of learning can be seen as the

back-and-forth movement between these two modes.

This explains also the radical innovative potential of

technical artifacts.

2. A categorization of technical artifacts

Before going further, it is useful to give a more

complete categorization of technical artifacts, which

can be roughly divided into 3 types. The first type we

discussed above can be called “extensions of the

body”: tools and sensory instruments. But there is also

a second type of artifact, consisting of deliberate

modifications of the environment: roads, buildings,

fields and so on. It is even more obvious that this

second type of artifact also modifies the world that

human beings live in.

A third sort can be called “semiotic artifacts”. Here,

the “actions” consist in emitting signals, and the

sensory input is specifically geared to the reception of

these signals. If the conditions that trigger the emission

of a signal and the response of the receiver are

appropriate, this leads to a co-ordination of actions, and

constitutes the basic form of communication, present

already in animal world. The human inventions are:

first of all, language itself; and then multiple technical

inventions: writing, printing, and computers. It is worth

noting that the computers are not only semiotic

artifacts, but also sensori-motor devices which

comprise a certain repertoire of real actions (moving

mouse, joysticks, etc.) with, in return, an increasing

range of sensory inputs (visual patterns, sounds etc.);

regularities are established between action and

sensation in this case as for the first type of artifacts.

This categorization can be useful for analytical

purposes; but it is important to note that in practice,

technical artifacts do not function in isolation from

each other, but form technical systems with a synergy

between these three types. For example, roads (type 2)

go together with cars (type 1), their synergy being

organized by maps and plans (type 3). A possible use

of the term “technology” (techno-logos) is to designate

the situation where there is linguistic communication

about the design, fabrication and use of technical

artifacts.

Following [5], some precisions can also be brought

to the distinction between the two modes we mentioned

above. The difference between in hand and put-down is

not simply between attached/not attached to the body.

First f all, there are two relatively independent levels

of dividing:

1. Between put-down and in-hand: put-down

corresponds to the mode in which the artifact is the

object of the explicit attention as an assembly of the

matter with certain proprieties (the specifically

scientific mode of relation to the object). One can think

on the difference between designing and riding the

bicycle. The in-hand mode is the mode in which the

user is engaged in the activity, and in which, under

normal conditions, the artifact is transparent, one feels

it like the extension of the body, not like the object of

the physics.

2. Between a normally functioning and a broken

artifact. Now comes the situation in which the artifact

is broken. In this situation, the artifact switches from

in-hand to put-down: instead of riding the bicycle and

being engaged in the sensory-motor activity, one

examines the broken chain as something having being

made of the material with bad resistance, etc. So one

can as she wish be in different attitudes to artifact:

consider it as in-hand or put-down (when maintaining

the technical device, one puts it in the put-down mode).

But the situation when the artifact breaks is particular,

because it forces the user to consider it as put-down.

It is the same case with the computers, even in the

Virtual Reality. As a user, one does not care about what

is going in the computer, it becomes a transparent

“equipment”. When the artifact is broken, the user will

check cables, electricity, she will consider it as an

object of science and technology, and the artifact is not

a transparent mean of action anymore.

The difficulty comes when we consider the fact that

in the put-down mode, the designer is also engaged in

the activity. But in a different way: the artifact is not a

mean of action. In fact, when one is

maintaining/designing or doing scientific research, she

is using other artifacts (pencils/CAD/hammer or

measurement instruments), which are in-hand as means

of action, and which are transparent to the user. Thus

one can see the put-down mode as a derivative from the

most fundamental in-hand mode.

Now the in-hand mode was provisionally defined as

an attachment to the body, in order to underline the fact

that it is transparent and fits into action. But in fact the

artifact can be not attached to the body, but still in-

hand. The road for example is not attached to the body,

but is still in-hand as a transparent mean of action.

Being on the road, one does not consider the road as

the physical proprieties of tarmac in the way the

science/technology do, but rather as a possibility to get

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where she wants to; the lighting pole on the road is not

attached to the body, but it is still in-hand because it is

also a mean of action of going there; moreover, the

light coming a certain way, one takes it into account

without explicitly thinking on its properties, and adapt

her sensory-motor activity when riding a bicycle

It stands to reason that there is still a difference

between the artifact that are actually attached to the

body, and which are not, but the first level of

distinction seems to be between in-hand (in a broad

sense) and put-down. In this broad sense, the artifacts

are in in-hand mode when they (a) fit into action, (b)

change sensory-motor loops, (c) are transparent, i.e. not

explicitly noticed, disappear from consciousness in aid

of the world they bring forth.

3. The social dimension

The fact that technical artifacts exist in the mode of

being “put down” has an important consequence: the

persons who design and make technical artifacts are,

generally, not the same as those who use them. Thus,

technological development goes together with a

division of labour and, correlatively, the development

of mechanisms of social synthesis (exchange, market

economies) which organize the integration of technical

systems as functional wholes.

Traditionally, the technology is usually considered

as a “black box”, as intrinsically neutral means to pre-

defined ends. The approach outlined here leads to a

new perspective in which technology occupies a central

position. The work of engineers has immense social

significance because, in fine, the choices of

technological devices fashion the human condition

itself, by manufacturing interfaces that change the

means of action, and influence sensations.

This introduces the debate about the usage of the

artifacts, which is of particular importance in the field

of Human-Computer Interaction where the design of

interfaces is supposed to be adapted to the user. The

question is then to articulate the design with the user’s

needs, abilities and knowledge, and to build possible

“enactive” interfaces. This raises multiple

epistemological questions: Is the knowledge of the

usage situated in the user as an acquired sensorimotor

knowledge? Does the quality of the interaction depend

only on this user’s knowledge? How to build an artifact

responding to the sensorimotor knowledge of the user?

Since the sensorimotor knowledge is not something

independent from the practice of artifacts, it seems

difficult to say that it is situated in the user. If the

artifact modifies the established sensory-motor

contingencies, then the enactive knowledge depends on

the artifacts. In other words, for human beings, it seems

impossible to talk about a standalone user, on whose

knowledge depends the use of the artifact, and the

ability to make it enactive. From our point of view, we

need to understand how the enaction takes place

between the two terms, the user and the artifact.

Still, “enactive” is a quality that does relate to the

individual, and the experience of an enacted world as a

world of possibilities is always for a human (who is

always technically equipped, even if she doesn't

actually use any interface), and the artifact alone does

not enact anything. But if the capacity to enact lies in

the user, artifacts do always change the quality of

enaction and human’s experience.

So already for a “single” user the enactive

knowledge is something situated “between” the user

and the artifact, but what about the social exposure?

The couple “artifact / sensory-motor contingencies” is

something that does evolve on the scale of the society,

and the problem of usage is something intrinsically

social. That’s why it is difficult to report this problem

to enactive knowledge of a single user.

What is enactive, it is not the interface itself, neither

the usage alone, it is the “combination” of them. If one

designs a very “enactive” interface, but there is no

social acceptance or implication, in the best case the

usage will be restricted to a narrow community. But the

contrary is also true: if the interface is not appropriated,

there will be no enaction (in the following sense: no

“good quality” of relation between the human and the

world) even if there is a wide social exposure. So, we

need to distinguish two sorts of Enactive Interfaces: in

a broad sense, every technical artifact is enactive

because it does modify the sensory-motor

contingencies, and bring forth a particular lived

experience, even if the artifact is really “constraining”;

in a strong sense, the criteria for the interface to be

enactive (good “quality” of interaction, transparency,

etc) are actually still to find.

But this is probably not enough. If we continue to

think, - and that was the mainstream of industrial

engineers -, that it is sufficient to design an interface

that seems good to designers, we would be probably

wrong. Many works on the anthropology of usage and

on involving the end-users in the process of design

seem to go in this direction.

Moreover, what one accepts as a quality of

interaction, is not something independent on

technology itself, more precisely on the socially

accepted aspect of technology or, let’s say, its historical

aspect. (It is not sure that today’s cameraphones are

really useful and enactive interfaces, they are however

widely socially accepted as something having a quality

of interaction). In other words, the artifacts are not only

responding to functional criteria, they are also, as

Leroi-Gourhan [7] for example has pointed out, a

support of figurative aesthetics, and this may be to the

detriment of the pure functionality. This could help us

to understand in which way the acceptance of the

artifacts is related to sensory-motor knowledge: this

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knowledge is always socially and technically

transmitted and determined. However, it is worth

noting that in any case we are not talking about a

technological determinism: the question is how the

social structures “arrange” with the technology, and not

what technology “imposes” by itself. The core question

is that it is difficult to know which interfaces will have

the social implications.

Would the artifact have or not the social exposure is

not something lying in the technology if one considers

the technology as the pure functionality of the artifact;

but it is something lying in the technology if one

considers the technology also as something intrinsically

socially constructed, and also if one considers the

social structures (for example the exposure of the

artifact related to the socially accepted criteria of

aesthetics) as something technically transmitted.

4. Discussion

The preceding considerations may not seem

particularly controversial, but they have some

controversial consequences. The term “Interface” is

clearly of central importance. However, the term itself

is the vehicle of an ambiguity that requires

clarification: “interface” between what and what?

As we understand it, the term “interface” is properly

used as the interface between an organism (human or

otherwise) and its environment. Thus, the basic

“interfaces” are the biological sensory and motor

organs; for humans, technical artifacts are extensions to

these basic interfaces, but they remain interfaces. New

technical devices constitute new “worlds”: think for

example of the “world of the skier”. But note this: we

do not talk about the “interface” between the man and

the ski; the ski is the interface between the man and the

snowy mountain, or better still between the skier and

the “skiing world” that is brought forth.

Does this change in the case of computers? Our

point of view is that computers are basically technical

devices, and should be treated in the same way as other

technical devices. Certainly, they are devices of a

special sort, and the “worlds” that are brought forth

when a human being uses them are a special sort of

“world”; but the interaction that occurs (that is

mediated by the machine) is between the human being

and this “world”; it is not an interaction between the

human being and the machine. Thus, there is something

deeply wrong in the very phrase “Human-Computer

Interface”. Of course, “HCI” has become a hackneyed

term, but this engrained (mis)-use does not make it

correct. The basic problem lies in the implication that

human beings and computers are entities of the same

sort, so that they could “interact” on a basis of equality.

This would only be correct if one whole-heartedly

embraces the representational paradigm according to

which humans function like computers; but as we

understand it, the enactive approach rejects this

classical paradigm in cognitive science.

Finally, an interesting question that arises is the

status of “virtual reality”. In this case, it does seem as

though the computer is playing the role of “the world”,

by providing the sensory consequences of actions on

the part of the human being. But even here, note that

the experience of a human being immersed in a “virtual

reality” is not that of interacting with a computer; the

human interacts with the entities that populate the

“world” that has been brought about. We only become

conscious of the computer (the interface) when a

malfunction triggers the switch to the put-down mode;

in normal functioning (the in-hand mode) the

computer-interface disappears from consciousness.

This remark is in no way meant to decry the interest

of “virtual realities”; on the contrary, such experiments

are deeply revealing. What they show is that in order to

create a “virtual reality”, it is neither necessary nor

sufficient to compute (in all its gory detail) the total

physical reality – an impossible task anyway, as shown

by flight simulators that have to fall back on analog

models; what is required is neither more nor less than

to provide the appropriate sensory returns to human

actions. This helps, greatly, to bring home the point

that what human beings experience in “natural”

situations is not an objective world “as-it-is”, but the

sensory-motor contingencies of their embodied

situation. Thus, interfaces and tools can permit (or not)

humans to enact the world, and the world we live in

depends on their design.

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vision and visual consciousness.” in Behavioral and

Brain Sciences 24, 2001, pp. 5-115.

[2] Varela F., Thompson E. & Rosch E. The Embodied

Mind. MIT Press, Boston, 1991.

[3] Warren, W. H. (1998). Visually controlled locomotion:

40 years later. Ecological Psychology, 10, 177-219.

[4] Khatchatourov, A et Auvray, M. “L’outil modifie-t-il la

perception ou la rend-il possible?” in Arob@se, 2005,

vol. 1. www.univ-rouen.fr/arobase

[5] Heidegger, M., Being and Time, State University of

New York Press, 1996

[6] Lenay et al. Sensory Substitution, Limits and

Perspectives, in Hatwell et al (eds), "Touching for

Knowing", John Benjamins Publishers, Amesterdam,

2004

[7] Leroi-Gourhan, A., Gesture and Speech, MIT Press,

1993.

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