Mind, Body, World- Foundations of Cognitive Science, 2013a

Critical to Vera and Simon’s (1993) attempt to cast situated action in a classical
context was their notion of “symbol.” First, symbols were taken to be some sort of
pattern, so that pattern recognition processes could assert that some pattern is a
token of a particular symbolic type (i.e., symbol recognition). Second, such patterns
were defined as true symbols when,
they can designate or denote. An information system can take a symbol token
as input and use it to gain access to a referenced object in order to affect it or be
affected by it in some way. Symbols may designate other symbols, but they may
also designate patterns of sensory stimuli, and they may designate motor actions.
(Vera & Simon, 1993, p. 9)
Vera and Simon (1993) noted that situated action or embodied theories are highly
variable and therefore difficult to characterize. As a result, they provided a very general
account of the core properties of such theories by focusing on a small number,
including Winograd and Flores (1987b). Vera and Simon observed that situated
action theories require accounts of behaviour to consider situations or contexts,
particularly those involving an agent’s environment. Agents must be able to adapt
to ill-posed (i.e., difficult to formalize) situations, and do so via direct and continuously
changing interactions with the environment.
Vera and Simon (1993) went on to emphasize six main claims that in their view
characterized most of the situated action literature: (1) situated action requires no
internal representations; (2) it operates directly with the environment (sense-act
rather than sense-think-act); (3) it involves direct access to affordances; (4) it does
not use productions; (5) it exploits a socially defined, not physically defined, environment;
and (6) it makes no use of symbols. With this position, Vera and Simon
were situated to critique the claim that the embodied approach is qualitatively different
from classical cognitive science. They did so by either arguing against the
import of some embodied arguments, or by in essence arguing for the formal equivalence
of classical and SA theories. Both of these approaches are in accord with
Norman’s (1993) portrayal of a culture clash.
As an example of the first strategy, consider Vera and Simon’s (1993) treatment
of the notion of readiness-to-hand. This idea is related to Heidegger’s (1962) concept
of Dasein, or being-in-the-world, which is an agent’s sense of being engaged
with its world. Part of this engagement involves using “entities,” which Heidegger
called equipment, and which are experienced in terms of what cognitive scientists
would describe as affordances or potential actions (Gibson, 1979). “Equipment is
essentially ‘something-in-order-to’” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 97).
Heidegger’s (1962) position was that when agents experience the affordances of
equipment, other properties—such as the physical nature of equipment—disappear.
This is readiness-to-hand. “That with which our everyday dealings proximally dwell
is not the tools themselves. On the contrary, that with which we concern ourselves
Marks of the Classical? 319