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Thank you Jude, The good news is that I'm able again to post to this list. The even better news is your post which brings some insights and a differentiation that must be made. Our relation with natural forms as natural forms Our relation with natural forms as artificial forms Our relation with natural forms as forms bound to be artificial Our relation with artificial forms as such and our relation with artificial forms as natural forms. Yet, it puzzles me the absence of a straight forward word for it in my language (or yours: "some kind of harmony"?) Best :0) Eduardo On 09-02-2012 15:38, CHUA Soo Meng Jude (PLS) wrote: > Dear Eduardo > I've just had the chance to read Gibson tonight, and it seems to mean some kind of harmony (he, in mandarin) between the object and the human being. > Almost Daoist, or at least it struck me as such. It's like things suggest inherent ways that they should be interacted with. > But I also noticed some inconsistency in Gibson. He speaks of a rock having many different possible affordances, as it were, many possible interpretations of uses, and hence having different forms. It's also like I think a kind of capability. Or a potentiality (Aristotle) for such and such in relation to the human. Afterall, a potency is potency only in relation to its actual form. A stone can be a missile (has this affordance) and also a hammer (p 134, The Ecological approach), but a stone has potency in relation to these actual forms, but not say water, which has no such potency in relation to these acts. The notion of affordance reminds me of the Aristotelian notion of potency therefore. Or as the later scholastics like Cajetan would say, act is limited by potency, but not any and every potency, but only those potencies which can receive it. What is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. He was speaking of the reception of form by matter and of esse by essence when commenting on Aquinas' de ente. You can shape into wood (potency) a horse form (act), but not into water, which cannot receive the form, and so is not a potency in relation to the actual form. Gibson may then say that water does not afford a stiff horse shape. Something like that. > Jude > ________________________________________ > From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduardo Corte Real [[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:15 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: Affordances: A brief review > > Dear Friends from the Neo-Latin part of this list, > > What is the translation in your native language of "affordances"? > Best regards, > Eduardo Côrte-Real > IADE- Lisbon > > On 09-02-2012 14:33, Kari Kuutti wrote: >> A couple of Danish psychologists, >> Bærentsen and Trettvik, did a nice analysis of affordances from the >> HCI point of view in their paper "An activity theory approach to >> affordance" ( NordiCHI '02: Proceedings of the second Nordic >> conference on Human-computer interaction) -- I have found it useful in >> my teaching. Sadly, the paper is available only in the ACM Digital >> Library that is not public domain but if somebody is interested I can >> send a copy (please contact me off-list). >> >> best regards, >> --Kari Kuutti >> University of Oulu, Finland (land of cold; -28C at the moment) >> > National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg > > DISCLAIMER : The information contained in this email, including any attachments, may contain confidential information. > This email is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) listed above. Unauthorised sight, dissemination or any other > use of the information contained in this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email by fault, please > notify the sender and delete it immediately. >