Chapter 1. Introduction

p 4

...design—the interaction between understanding and creation

1.1 The question of design

p 6

This new way of speaking in turn creates changes in the world we construct. As an example of how new language creates new possibilities for action, consider Freud's introduction of terms such as 'ego,' 'subconscious,' and 'repression.'

1.2 The role of tradition

1.3 Our path

Chapter 2. The rationalistic tradition

2.1 The rationalistic orientation

pp 14-15

The rationalistic orientation can be depicted in a series of steps:

1. Characterize the situation in terms of identifiable objects with well-defined properties.
2. Find general rules that apply to situations in terms of those objects and properties.
3. Apply the rules logically to the situation of concern, drawing conclusions about what should be done.

There are some obvious questions about how we set situations into correspondence with systematic 'representations' of objects and properties, and with how we can come to know general rules. In much of the rationalistic tradition, however, these are deferred in favor of emphasizing the formulation of systematic rules that can be used to draw logical conclusions. Much of Western philosophy —from classical rhetoric to modern symbolic logic— can be seen as a drive to come up with more systematic and precise formulations of just what constitutes valid reasoning.

Questions of correspondence and knowledge still exercise philosophers, but in the everyday discourse about thinking and reasoning, they are taken as unproblematic. In fact when they are raised, the discussion is often characterized as being too philosophical. Even within philosophy, there are schools (such as analytic philosophy) in which the problems raised by the first two items are pushed aside, not because they are uninteresting, but because they are too difficult and open-ended.

2.2 Language, truth, and the world

2.3 Decision making and problem solving

2.4 Cognitive science

Chapter 3. Understanding and Being

3.1 Hermeneutics

3.2 Understanding and ontology

p 30-31

The prevalent understanding is based on the metaphysical revolution of Galileo and Descartes, which grew out of a tradition going back to Plato and Aristotle. This understanding, which goes hand in hand with what we have called the `rationalistic orientation,' includes a kind of mind-body dualism that accepts the existence of two separate domains of phenomena, the objective world of physical reality, and the subjective mental world of an individual's thoughts and feelings. Simply put, it rests on several taken-for-granted assumptions:

1. We are inhabitants of a `real world' made up of objects bearing properties. Our actions take place in that world.
2. There are `objective facts' about that world that do not depend on the interpretation (or even presence) of any person.
3. Perception is a process by which facts about the world are (sometimes inaccurately) registered in our thoughts and feelings.
4. Thoughts and intentions about action can somehow cause physical (hence real-world) motion of our bodies.

Much of philosophy has been an attempt to understand how the mental and physical domains are related—how our perceptions and thoughts relate to the world toward which they are directed. Some schools have denied the existence of one or the other. Some argue that we cannot coherently talk about the mental domain, but must understand all behavior in terms of the physical world, which includes the physical structure of our bodies. Other espouse solipsism, denying that we can establish the existence of an objective world at all, since our mental world is the only thing of which we have immediate knowledge. Kant called it "a scandal of philosophy and of human reason in general" that over the thousands of years of Western culture, no philosopher had been able to provide a sound argument refuting psychological idealism—to answer the question: "How do I know whether anything outside of my subjective consciousness exists?"

Heidegger argues that "the `scandal of philosophy' is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again.". He says of Kant's "Refutation of Idealism" that it shows "...how intricate these questions are and how what one wants to prove gets muddled with what one does prove and with the means whereby the proof is carried out."

3.3 An illustration of thrownness

3.4 Breaking down and readiness-to-hand

Chapter 4. Cognition as a biological phenomenon

4.1 The closure of the nervous system

4.2 Autopoiesis, evolution, and learning

p 44

• Phylogeny: species history
• Ontogeny: individual history

p 44-45

The phenomenon of autopoiesis is quite general. It can apply to systems existing in any domain in which we can identify unities and components. An autopoeitic system holds constant its organization and defines its boundaries through the continuous production of its components. If the autopoiesis is interrupted, the system's organization —its identity as a particular kind of unity— is lost, and the system disintegrates (dies).

Note 9, p 45

In later work, Maturana and Varela distinguish autopoiesis, as a property of cellular systems, from a more general property of operational closure that applies to a broader class of systems.

p 46

The frog with optic fibers responding to small moving dark spots does not have a representation of flies.

4.3 The cognitive domain

4.4 Consensual domains

4.5 The observer and description

p 50

[As biological beings, we] can never have knowledge about external reality. We can have structure that reflects our history of interactions in a medium, but that medium is not composed of 'things' that are knowable.

p 51-52

The question of solipsism arises only as a pseudo-problem, or does not arise at all, because the necessary condition for our possibility of talking about it is our having a language that is a consensual system of interactions in a subject dependent domain, and this condition constitutes the negation of solipsism. —Maturana, "Cognitive strategies" (1974)

4.6 Domains of explanation

Chapter 5. Language, listening, and commitment

5.1 Listening in a background

p 54-55

Sentences have literal meaning. —Searle, "Literal meaning" (1979), p. 117

5.2 Meaning, commitment, and speech acts

5.3 Objectivity and tradition

p 61

Analogy of roads and terrain.

But the actual placement [of roads] depends on who wants to get vehicles of what kind from where to where, for reasons that transcend geography.

5.4 Recurrence and formalization

p 68

We believe that water is H₂O and the Napoleon was the Emperor of France not because we have relevant experience but because somebody told us.

5.5 Breakdown, language, and existence

p 68

Nothing exists except through language.

p 69

It is often remarked that Eskimos have a large number of distinctions for forms of snow. This is not just because they see a lot of snow (we see many things we don't bother talking about), but precisely because there are recurrent activities with spaces of potential breakdowns for which the distinctions are relevant.

Chapter 6. Towards a new orientation

6.1 Cognition and being in the world

p 71

... cognition viewed not as activity in some mental realm, but as a pattern of behavior that is relevant to the functioning of the person or organism in its world.

6.2 Knowledge and representation

6.3 Pre-understanding and background

6.4 Language and action

6.5 Breakdown and the ontology of design

p 77-78

About 'problem solving'

Breakdown: the interrupted moment of our habitual, standard, comfortable 'being-in-the-world'. Breakdowns serve an extremely important function, revealing to us the nature of our practices and equipment, making them 'present-to-hand' to us, perhaps for the first time.

p 78

A design constitutes an interpretation of breakdown and a committed attempt to anticipate future breakdowns.

p 78

Because of what Heidegger calls our 'thrownness', we are largely forgetful of the social dimension of understanding and the commitment it entails. It is only when a breakdown occurs that we become aware of the fact that 'things' in our world exist not as the result of individual acts of cognition but through our active participation in a domain of discourse and mutual concern.