how knowing occurs and how knowledge is possible, underpins the approach to
learning enhanced by new technologies here. An aspect of this epistemology which
has particular importance concerns both representation and meaning. In this paper I
take up some of the questions concerning meaning by looking at those streams of
contemporary philosophy which have instigated a radical reopening of the question of
Mind and World. It turns out that this reconsideration parallels the work of Vygotsky
(Bakhurst 1997) and through Vygotsky a connection to education is forged.
Affordance and Meaning
The term affordance was coined by James Gibson who developed the concept as
a core element of his theory of the ecology of perception. He distinguishes the noun
affordance from the verb to afford saying “I mean by it something that refers to both
the environment and animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the
complementarity of the animal and environment” (Gibson, 1986, p. 127). His theory
of ecological psychology addressed what he saw as the inadequacy of accounts both
in mentalist terms, emphasising the subjective constitution of concepts, and in
behaviourist terms emphasising habits. He was concerned to provide a naturalistic
account of animal-environment reciprocity drawing particular attention to the way in
which our bodily activity is constrained by ecological position. As an example of
what he meant by affordance he wrote of:
an elongated object, especially if weighted at one end and
graspable at the other affords hitting or hammering (a club). A
pointed object affords piercing (a spear, and arrow, and awl, or