Epistemology and conceptual resources for the development of learning technologies

but involve a consideration of the distinctive relation of humans to the world that they
inhabit and the extent to which that relation is one characteristic of an animal or a
human nature. If it is the case that meaning can be conveyed directly to our senses by
virtue of a co-evolved relation with an environment then the design and development
of technology-enhanced learning is quite a different matter than if it is the case that
humans develop intellect, not though a cumulative build up of sense data but instead,
as Vygotsky proposed, by enculturation into a humanized environment. Education, a
peculiarly higher form of behaviour, cannot be adequately understood by starting
from the standpoint of an empiricist epistemology. Unlike animals which evolve
human beings also develop. And in this process of development, through which
whole new needs and capacities are created including new ways of thinking about the
world, acting in it and on it, education plays a crucial role. It is only when it is
conceived in the most wide of contexts that its importance can be fully appreciated.
The issues involved in articulating the distinctive character of human knowing and of
knowledge go beyond the reach of this article. However, in so far as philosophical
work raises questions concerning the use of the concept of affordance within social
practices, just one small aspect will be considered below; the difference between
mechanical and human responsiveness to the world.

The concept of affordance, in the sense of conveying meaning directly, was taken up
and developed further by Donald Norman (1988) in his book The Psychology of
Everyday Things. A major theme of his book „was the attempt to understand how we
manage in a world of tens of thousands of objects, many of which we would
encounter only once’ and Norman’s response to the question was „that the required
information was in the world: the appearance of the device [my emphasis] could

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