An Ontology of Affordances

Sanders, John T.

doi:10.1207/s15326969eco0901_4

Cited by 100 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…However as Sanders (1997) argues, just because there are ontological issues about whether the colour blue exists or does not exist, this has not caused us to abandon colours; so too the usefulness of affordance theory should not be abandoned simply because we have not yet clearly framed it within an appropriate ontological understanding. In response to this need we seek to develop a framing that provides a lens to both explore the developments in affordance theory and point towards potential future directions for its use in education research.…”

Section: Reframing Affordances: the Three Movementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In developing this framing we begin by following what several researchers have suggested (Parchoma, 2013;Sanders, 1997;Turvey, 1992) as the best place to unravel the confusing and often-conflicting definitions and uses of affordances -the ontology of affordances. This has formed the base of the preceding discussion regarding the difference between Gibson's affordance, that actually exists in the environment (realist), and Norman's emphasis on perception of a property that might or might not exist (relativist).…”

Section: Reframing Affordances: the Three Movementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is this goal that the following conceptualisation of Movement 3 -Actant Affordances --attempts to achieve. For some time there have been calls for a shift away from subject-object and agency debates that have defined both the first and second movements of affordances (Sanders, 1997;Williams & Edge, 1996). In a broader theoretical sense this is part of the response to move away from simple discrete binaries to what Barad (2007) refers to as entanglements and the need for 'individuals to emerge through and as part of their entangled intra-relating'.…”

Section: Affordance Movement 3 -Actant Affordancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Actant affordances: a brief history of affordance theory and a Latourian extension for education technology research

Blewett¹,

Hugo²

2016

CriSTaL

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Affordance theory provides a useful lens to explore the action opportunities that arise between users and technology, especially in education. However developments in the theory have resulted both in confusion and misapplication, due partly to issues related to affordance theory's ontology. This paper outlines two competing perspectives on affordances by Gibson and Norman, before arguing that Latour's theory of 'actants' provides a useful middle way between these competing positions. This 'actant affordance' provides new opportunities for undertaking educational technology research that focuses on the network of negotiations taking place between actants (student, teacher, technology, pedagogy, etc.) rather than studying causality or simple binaries.

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Section: Reframing Affordances: the Three Movementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Reframing Affordances: the Three Movementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Affordance Movement 3 -Actant Affordancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Actant affordances: a brief history of affordance theory and a Latourian extension for education technology research

Blewett¹,

Hugo²

2016

CriSTaL

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“…Both organisms like humans and the natural environment are constituted by their reciprocity, for instance the mutual supportive realities of the environment (materials for making a house) and a human being which settles itself in this 5 It is clear that Gibson's primary goal was to develop an ecological physics and that he was not interested in the development of a concept of nature. Nevertheless, there is no reason in principle why his analysis of the affordance cannot be applied at the level of specific eco-systems- Kadar and Effken (1994) developed for instance such a regional ontology-and at the level of the eco-system of the earth or nature as a whole- Sanders (1997) for instance developed such a general ontology (Sanders 1997, 108). environment to build his house. ''We all fit into the substructures of the environment in our various ways for we were all, in fact, formed by them.…”

Section: Affordance and Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

The Human Glance, the Experience of Environmental Distress and the “Affordance” of Nature: Toward a Phenomenology of the Ecological Crisis

Blok

2015

J Agric Environ Ethics

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The problem we face today is that there is a huge gap between our ethical judgments about the ecological crisis on the one hand and our ethical behavior according to these judgments on the other. In this article, we ask to what extent a phenomenology of the ecological crisis enables us to bridge this gap and display more ethical or pro-environmental behavior. To answer this question, our point of departure is the affordance theory of the American psychologist and founding father of ecological psychology, James Gibson. There are two reasons for taking this approach. First of all, an ontological reading of Gibson's affordance theory provides a concept of nature which is non-dualistic, non-anthropocentric and eco-centric, but is not seen as an 'intrinsic value' or product of 'human valuation'. Secondly, the affordance ontology provides us with a concept of nature which in itself calls for certain action and behavior. If we indeed face a gap between ethical judgment and ethical behavior with regard to the current ecological crisis, an affordance of nature could bridge this gap. Based on our ontological reading of Gibson's affordance theory, we open a radically new perspective on the current ecological crisis and the responsibility of mankind with regard to this crisis.

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“…For the ecological psychologist, people perceive affordances, that is, properties of objects that have a value in terms of behavior (Gibson 1979;Sanders 1997;Stoffregen 2000). Hence, from an ontological viewpoint, an object affords a class of actions that have an adaptive function for the perceiver.…”

Section: How Many Systems Make a Global Array?mentioning

confidence: 99%