Understanding Computers and Cognition

by Hugh McGuire1

How to Read Winograd's and Flores's

Introduction
Understanding Computers and Cognition (A New Foundation for Design), by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, should be signi cant to cognitive scientists, including researchers of `arti cial intelligence', but some (such as new students) may not be su ciently familiar with sources such as Martin Heidegger to properly understand the book. The purpose of this paper is to guide the reader of Winograd's and Flores's book, providing supplementary material including some commentary. Except for sections such as this where Understanding as a whole is addressed, this paper proceeds essentially sequentially through the book, and section-headings of this paper refer to section-headings of the book. Similarly, page-references, e.g. \ p.42]", refer to Understanding unless otherwise indicated. Thus, this paper is designed to be read concurrently with the book. How to read this paper cursorily If you (the reader of this paper) seek not all of this paper's details but rather the core, you may want to read only (this passage,) the next sub-section, titled \Initiating Discussion", and the three (sub-)sections titled \Concluding Remarks . . . ", which start on pages 31, 50, and 56 (of this paper).

Initiating Discussion (Preface and Chapter 1)

The primary purpose of Understanding Computers and Cognition (A New Foundation for Design) is stated as follows: Our intention is to provide an opportunity for the reader to develop a new orientation. p.8] This intention occupies the plurality of the book and is the basis for almost all the rest. This idea of \orientation" is similar to the `paradigm' of Thomas Kuhn2 ; it is a \conceptual framework" p.10], a collection of assumptions which serves as a foundation for thought and behavior.3 Though the authors mention \our theory" p.7], they qualify their meaning:

1 This material is based upon work supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. Any opinions, ndings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily re ect the views of the National Science Foundation. The production of this paper was aided by comments from Terry Winograd and John McCarthy. 2 See The Structure of Scienti c Revolutions. 3 This idea, which is here called \conceptual framework", is common. As mentioned, Kuhn calls it \paradigm". E. F. Schumacher references it as \ideas with which to think" in Small is Beautiful p.82( .) of that book]. Earl R. MacCormac calls it something like \myth" in Metaphor and myth in science and religion. Winograd and Flores mention \mythology" p.8]. (This last term is accurate, according to a dictionary; unfortunately, it has unpleasant connotations.) The idea is even rei ed by researchers of `arti cial intelligence':

2 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 Our discourse is theoretical in that it deals with fundamental questions, but it is not directed towards postulating formal theories that can be systematically used to make predictions. p.9] Thus, the \new orientation" will be presented not as a scienti c theory with postulates and laws but more holistically. The authors transcend the old `mythologies' of Computer-Science and Cognitive Science to `understand computers and cognition'; the book's discussion of `design' is new, but so is the book's understanding. Therefore, the reader might actually consider the book's title to be: \A New Foundation for Understanding (Cognition and Computers)", or \Being and Computers".4 A second major purpose of the book is described as follows: In examining how people have thought about and talked about computers, we became] aware of the pervasive e ect of a powerful . . . ] `rationalistic' tradition. . . . ] The task we have undertaken in this book is to challenge the rationalistic tradition, introducing an alternative orientation. . . . ] In doing so], we were led to a critique of the current mythology of arti cial intelligence and its related cognitive theories. p.8] This second purpose is to evaluate computers, \arti cial intelligence", and the rationalistic tradition. Here (and elsewhere), Winograd and Flores indicate that this purpose was the original impetus for the book, but as it must have developed, the rst purpose mentioned above predominated: a conceptual foundation was necessary for the critique. A third purpose is indicated as follows: We search for images that can help us anticipate computer impacts and direct further development. p.3] This third purpose is to consider the future; it is the \Design" mentioned in the title.5 Finally, there are probably ancillary purposes. For example, notice the invitation to the reader in the rst quotation (re the primary purpose) above: not only do the authors advertise their presenting a conceptual framework, they also indicate that they are attempting to persuade the reader to adopt it. However, they note: We do not attempt to provide a philosophical exposition and critique in which arguments for and against each position are enumerated and weighed. p.9]
The formalization of knowledge in declarative form begins with a conceptualization. This includes the objects presumed or hypothesized to exist in the world and their interrelationships. p.9 of Logical Foundations of Arti cial Intelligence (1987), by Genesereth and Nilsson] Examples of conceptual frameworks include Ptolemy's geocentric theory of planetary motion, Freud's theory of psychology, the general conception of economics involving ideas such as `property' and `money', and the tacit, everyday macrophysics that people use to operate in the world. Metrics (described in the aforementioned sources) for comparing conceptual frameworks include comprehensiveness, simplicity, believability, con rmability, and usefulness. 4 Indeed, Winograd says that the title was compromised somewhat by the publisher. Conversation with Winograd, 1990] 5 So the title could be: \Being, Computers, and Design".

How to Read Understanding / 3 The book is organized straightforwardly: part is targeted at purpose #1, presenting Winograd's and Flores's (the `WF') conceptual framework; part is targeted at purpose #2, describing and critiquing the rationalistic tradition, particularly re computers and `arti cial intelligence'; and part is targeted at purpose #3, presenting a new way of designing computer-systems. Part relies on part , and part relies on part and somewhat on part . Since it discusses issues global to the book and indeed describes the entire book, chapter by chapter, the reader may want to consider the introduction (chapter 1) as preceding part instead of being included in it. Also, chapter 2 belongs as part of part 's discussion of technology. (Chapter 2, containing an initial presentation of the rationalistic conceptual framework, might have been intended as a foil for part 's presentation of the WF conceptual framework, but that's not necessary; only part depends on chapter 2 .) Consequently, the reader may want to read the book's chapters in the following order: 1 (introduction), 3{6 (part ), 2 and 7{10 (part ), 11{12 (part ).
I II III II I III I II I II I II I II III

A Pervasive Theme: Language

In their response to reviews of Understanding Computers and Cognition, Winograd and Flores write: In Understanding Computers and Cognition, we presented a theory of language, on which we base our understanding of cognition and of computers. Arti cial Intelligence (AIJ ), Feb. 87, p.250] In the book's introduction, the authors (also) note the following: In this endeavor we are doubly concerned with language. First, we are studying a technology that operates in a domain of language. The computer is a device for creating, manipulating, and transmitting symbolic (hence linguistic) objects. Second, in looking at the impact of the computer, we nd ourselves thrown back into questions of language | how practice shapes our language and language in turn generates the space of possibilities for action. This book, then, is permeated by a concern for language. Much of our theory is a theory of language, and our understanding of the computer centers on the role it will play in mediating and facilitating linguistic action as the essential human activity. p.7] Indeed, the topic of language pervades the book: Hermeneutics is presented as a theory or practice based on language, Humberto R. Maturana's biological conceptual framework is presented as considering all interactions linguistic, more standard language is discussed, computers are (as noted) described as manipulators of linguistic symbols, understanding natural language is emphasized among research on `arti cial intelligence', the chapters on design focus on electronic linguistic message-passing, and the examples throughout the book are such as bits of dialogue or `word-processing' computer-programs.6 Considering this emphasis on language as the essence of behavior, the reader may be reminded of Herbert Simon's emphasis on problem-solving as the essence of behavior, and concomitant narrowmindedness.
6 So the title could be: \Being, Language, Computers, and Design".

4 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 Andre Vellino's review of Understanding notes another way in which language is signi cant to the book: \the authors chose to use the language of hermeneutics and its accompanying conceptual schemes" AIJ 2/87 p.214{25]. Before they are properly explained, the book's Preface uses the expressions: \spaces", \being", \background", \pre-understanding", \clearing", and in a cryptic note to the people of Chile: \open new conversations for possibility". Showing a little more of the WF conceptual framework, the introduction uses the expressions: \discourse", \open a] question", \unconcealing", \breakdown", \listening", \blindness", and a few other WF constructions, e.g.: \we create our world through language." Vellino calls this diction \obtuse". Indeed, this vocabulary | including the unusual use of common words | is not easily understood, but neither is the jargon of any eld until one becomes familiar with it. As William J. Clancey notes in his review AIJ 2/87 p.235] of Understanding, Winograd and Flores do characterize this language somewhat as new jargon (\new terminology" Understanding, p.40]). Re de ning their new expressions, the authors say: Our own theory of language denies the possibility of giving precise de nitions. The network of meanings will gradually evolve as the di erent ideas are developed and the links of their interdependence laid out. p.40] A conjecture is that in addition to using some of Martin Heidegger's (and others') terminology, Winograd and Flores are attempting to use some of his style. For example, they have: In . . . ] explicitly Heideggerian language, . . . ] world as the background of obviousness is manifest in our everyday dealings as the familiarity that pervades our situation. p.58] Heidegger uses somewhat new words such as \hermeneutics", \dasein", and \thrownness", and he combines familiar words in unfamiliar ways, as in \beingin-the-world", \present-at-hand", and \ready-to-hand". (See pp. 33{34 of Understanding.) His writing may be construed as poetry or rhetoric, addressing the reader not straightforwardly but indirectly, via the e ects of the patterns of words.7 Clancey makes a similar point: Sometimes the book has a poetic, mystical tone. . . . ] The authors thus] evoke reverence for their ideas, as in]: \. . . we continue becoming the beings that we are." AIJ 2/87 p.235{36] Clancey further says: These jargon-]words turn out to be useful for retaining the message. Like Freud's jargon (e.g., ego, subconscious), these terms introduce a new language for thinking about familiar things. AIJ 2/87, p.235] Nevertheless, the reader may want to interpret some WF expressions via more standard expressions of English. For example, Winograd and Flores use Humberto R. Maturana's (and Francisco Varela's) word \autopoiesis" p.40], yet a dictionary indicates that \homeostasis", which has a similar meaning, has been available since 1925{30 | even Simon uses it The Sciences of the Arti cial | see its index].8 Similarly, for \background" there is (the gurative version

7 Indeed, Heidegger references a fable as support for his theories re Care in Being and Time H.198{99]. Psychologists or sociologists also do so: for example, consider the etymology of \oedipal". But Heidegger uses the material of the fable as one might use a factual newspaperarticle. Such practice may be considered `poetic' or `rhetorical'. 8 See also footnote #21, below (in this paper).

How to Read Understanding / 5 of) \perspective", for \being-in-the-world" there is \existence", for \blindness" there is \narrowmindedness", for \breakdown" there is \misunderstanding", and so on.9 Heidegger counters: The `essence' \Wesen"] of this entity Dasein] lies in its \to be" Zusein]. Its Being-what-it-is Was-sein] (essentia) must, so far as we can speak of it at all, be conceived in terms of its Being (existentia). But here our ontological task is to show that when we choose to designate the Being of this entity as \existence" Existenz], this term does not and cannot have the ontological signi cation of the traditional term \existentia"; ontologically, existentia is tantamount to Being-present-at-hand, a kind of Being which is essentially inappropriate to entities of Dasein's character. To avoid getting bewildered, we shall always use the Interpretative expression \presence-at-hand " for the term \existentia", while the term \existence", as a designation of Being, will be allotted solely to Dasein. Being and Time, H.42] Thus, ne distinctions may warrant special terms. But such ne distinctions appear to be mostly inconsequential to Winograd's and Flores's work; some expressions have more typical10 equivalents which should be su cient for understanding the book. The reader should beware being confused when a term is used both with a standard meaning and with a special (WF) meaning. Some words used both ways are \commitment" p.62], \distinction"/\distinct" p.50], and \language" p.49, p.58]. Another caveat is that Winograd and Flores `overload' \we" and \our", frequently intermingling references to themselves with references to people generally. For example, they have: Chapter 2 described a `naive realism' that is prominent within the rationalistic tradition. As we pointed out there, this is not a logical consequence of the tradition (and is not accepted by all philosophers within it), but it is part of the pervasive background that follows the tradition in our everyday understanding. p.72] Clearly, here, the \we" refers to the authors while the \our" should refer to people generally. As another example, on pages 50{51 is a passage where \we" initially and maybe throughout is supposed to refer to the authors but gradually appears to refer to people generally, as some of the claims for \we" are clearly intended to be true for all people. The book contains many other similar passages. Perhaps Winograd and Flores are attempting to subtly induce the reader to adopt their perspective: as mentioned above, the authors indicate that they indeed intend to persuade by pattern of words (rhetoric) rather than by argument. Regardless, the reader should be aware of this `overloading' to avoid being confused by it. A nal consideration re language involves some of the expressions that Winograd and Flores associate with the rationalistic tradition (which they criticize): \represent", \information", \communicate", \transmit", \perceive", etc. As described below, Winograd and Flores tend to construe these expressions unfairly narrowly, criticizing speci c interpretations while ignoring broader ones.
9 The presence of these prior equivalents to WF expressions indicates that the book's \new orientation" p.8] may not be entirely new; maybe it's synthesis, or `consciousness-raising'. 10 `ready-to-hand'?

6 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

The WF Conceptual Framework (Part )

I

As described above re the organization of Understanding, chapters 1 and 2 don't quite belong in part ; chapter 1 is the book's introduction, and this paper addresses chapter 2 where it address part , below.
I II

Heideggerian Concepts (Chapter 3)

Winograd and Flores tackle philosophy's most formidable domains, epistemology and ontology, in Chapter 3 | which is titled \Understanding and Being". The fundamental source here is Martin Heidegger;11 the authors present the following ideas of his: Existence is equivalent to interpretation. The rst of Heidegger's points noted in this chapter is a de nition: The interpreted and the interpreter do not exist independently: existence is interpretation, and interpretation is existence. Pre-conception] is the necessary condition of having a background for interpretation (hence Being). pp. 31{32] This text is a (re-)de nition12 | of \existence" | because it indicates that the reader should understand \existence" as, say, `existence-with-relevance', a sense di erent from how a typical person normally understands \existence". In Heidegger's \Being and Time", Mark Blitz writes: Existence, here, does not mean reality, or actuality, or mere \thatness", as it does when one asks, say, whether or not a particular building still exists, whatever its nature or function. Rather, Heidegger identi es existence with possibility. Blitz p.33] When a tree falls in a forest and no person is near, the sound does have \existence" normally, but it need not if \existence" is re-de ned as indicated. In Being and Time, Heidegger is slightly more careful with his terminology: when di erent senses are meant, he attempts to use terms other than \existence", e.g. \Reality" (capitalized).13 Pre-understanding. The next point is: \Our implicit beliefs and assumptions cannot all be made explicit" p.32]. Winograd and Flores explain: \There is no neutral viewpoint from which we can see our beliefs as things" p.32]; but they do not explain why such a \neutral viewpoint" may be necessary. Indeed, Understanding does not justify this claim of inarticulatability of ideas. Perhaps the authors have misattributed this claim to Heidegger: elsewhere, they quote Gadamer making the same claim p.29]. But careful consideration of that quote | involving a metaphor of \standing" and \light" | reveals that Gadamer is simply assuming the claim there, saying that inarticulatability of background \lies in the essence

11 The authors mention Hans-Georg Gadamer rst, but they indicate p.30] that Heidegger preceded Gadamer. They explain why they mention Gadamer rst, saying that Gadamer \most clearly formulated" p.28] certain relevant ideas. 12 | just as Heidegger seems to (re-)de ne the term \existence" in Being and Time, H.12 and H.42. 13 See also H.42 of Being and Time.

How to Read Understanding / 7 of the historical being which is ours. . . . ] | Gadamer, Truth and Method (1975), pp. 268{269" Understanding, p.29]. An appeal to \essence" is not convincing. Even Hubert Dreyfus | the immediate source for this claim | doesn't justify it in his work that is easily accessible: he writes that complete articulation \may be impossible" Mind Design (ed. Haugeland), p.198]; notice his use of \may". This claim of inarticulatability is crucial to Winograd's and Flores's claims, later in the book, that computer-programmer's articulations will always be incomplete; consequently, those claims are weakened (from the perspective of argumentation). Practical > theoretical. The next of Heidegger's points presented is: \Practical understanding is more fundamental than detached theoretical understanding" p.32]. By \practical understanding", Winograd and Flores mean \thrownness" p.33], the somewhat automatic acting that constitutes most of a typical person's behavior. By \detached theoretical understanding", the authors mean any thought not directly involved with action. Such `detached' understanding includes typical scienti c explanations of phenomena such as day and night but also mental activities such as consciously formulating and using the observation that unsupported objects fall toward the ground, instead of simply living with an unconscious assumption that such is true. The latter attitude is more typical of `thrownness'. An unjusti ed accusation here is: The Western philosophical tradition is based on the assumption that the detached theoretical point of view is superior to the involved practical viewpoint. p.32] While science certainly is respected, people including Western philosophers don't compare it to tacit understandings of the world so much as to unscienti c explanations, e.g. myths of ery objects connected with carts that proceed on roads through the sky. Perhaps Winograd and Flores meant to refer to attitudes involving religion, under which mental activities are considered better than bodily activities. No representations. Next, Winograd and Flores note \Heidegger's rejection of mental representations" p.33]. Consulting Heidegger's writings reveals the justi cation: Heidegger rejects the idea of mental representation as it is complicit with the subject-object dualism of Cartesian philosophy. Heidegger writes: Perceptive retention of an assertion about something is itself a way of Being-in-the-world; it is not to be Interpreted as a `procedure' by which a subject provides itself with representations of something which remain stored up `inside' as having been thus appropriated. . . . ] When Dasein human-being] directs itself towards something and grasps it, it does not somehow rst get out of an inner sphere in which it has been proximally encapsulated, but its primary kind of Being is such that it is always `outside' alongside entities which it encounters and which belong to a world already discovered. Heidegger, Being and Time, H.62] From one perspective, Heidegger is incorrect here: the term \representation" is su ciently elastic or rich for one to decide that various patterns of activations

8 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 in a brain's neurons `represent' various things. Ste k and Bobrow note such a possible perspective AIJ 2/87, p.223], as do David West and Larry Travis: Neural networks still embody methodological dualism in that they require representation, albeit distributed, of the external real inside the machine (in the form of connection weights). AI Magazine, Summer 1991, p.79] (See also below re chapter 4 and p.131 of Understanding.) Incidentally, presumably Heidegger would have no objection to a computer using representation since it was dualism applied to humans that concerned him. No individualism. The last of Heidegger's points presented here is: \we must take social activity as the ultimate foundation of intelligibility, and even of existence" p.33]. Actually, Heidegger doesn't quite say such. Being-in-the-world is fundamental in Heidegger's conceptual framework, and Care somehow determines Beingin-the-world, but Care isn't simply the guidance (in uence?) of society; it's a more abstract term.14 Anyway, considering the point itself | that \meaning" or identity depends on human society | the point is essentially false. Certainly, as things proceed today, a typical person tends to interpret the world and his or her role in it within a perspective based on interactions with other humans: the person is a student, a professor, a librarian, an administrator, a businessperson, a nurse, a eld-hand, etc. But a farmer, a hermit, or certain others needn't (though they often do) have such interactions, and an `Omega'-person | alone after a dread virus kills all others | could probably be a librarian, student, repair-person, doctor, farmer, etc. without others (and probably would, to survive). Less hypothetically, psychologists indicate that individuals inherently have \meaning". Psychologists have discovered that infants have some predispositions such as one for gazing at eye-like images.15 Sure, a parent's societal in uence arises when the parent tells an infant | with pointing, etc. | \This is a cat." But the infant already knows, `This is a this'! | the infant can already reference the cat, the parent, and the pointing implement. Finally, a historical perspective indicates that society isn't always so important: there was no society when life rst arose in primordial goop, yet each life-entity certainly had identity.16 This (biological and) historical perspective just mentioned a ects another Heideggerian concept, namely the \hermeneutic circle": What we understand is based on what we already know, and what we already know comes from being able to understand. p.30] Rather than a permanent circle, this process may be perceived more as a spiral which an individual joins on some loop because of genotype and culture, with the inner loops leading from the origin re ecting evolutionary and cultural history. Winograd and Flores introduce in chapter 3 several terms, including \readyto-hand", \present-at-hand", and \breakdown":

14 See Being and Time. 15 See Child Development and Personality, by P. Mussen, J. Conger, and J. Kagan | p.132 ( fth edition), and Change and Continuity in Infancy, by Jerome Kagan. See also p.52 of Understanding. 16 See also p.51 of the book re emphasizing society, and below (in this paper) for commentary

thereon.

How to Read Understanding / 9 Another aspect of Heidegger's thought that is di cult for many people to assimilate to their previous understanding is his insistence that objects and properties are not inherent in the world, but arise only in an event of breaking down in which they become presentat-hand. One simple example he gives is that of a hammer being used by someone engaged in driving a nail. To the person doing the hammering, the hammer as such does not exist. It is a part of the background of readiness-to-hand that is taken for granted without explicit recognition or identi cation as an object. It is part of the hammerer's world, but is not present any more than are the tendons of the hammerer's arm. p.36] By contrast, Heidegger himself writes: \An equipment-Thing . . . ], in its readinessto-hand . . . ], has constantly been present-at-hand too" Being, H.63]. Heidegger indicates that an object (such as that hammer) is always \present-at-hand"; its \readiness-to-hand" merely dominates a typical person's consideration (attention) at times. Winograd and Flores use \breakdown" throughout the book to refer to any type of failure. Such universality is indicated here, as in: \. . . if it breaks or slips from grasp or mars the wood, or if . . . ] the hammer cannot be found" p.36], \the forms of breaking down that will occur when the normal background of gravity is altered" p.36], and: \if a letter fails to appear on the screen" p.37]. Here, the concept seems innocuous: `breakdown' is an aspect of interpretationism or thrownness: It is meaningless to talk about the existence of objects and their properties in the absence of concernful activity, with its potential for breaking down. What really is is . . . ] de ned . . . ] by a space of potential for human concern and action. p.37] However, later in the book `breakdown' dominates thrownness: instead of referring to the \space of potential for human concern and action", with `breakdown' as a notion ancillary to that concept, the authors have language such as the following: \The analysis of a human context of activity can begin with an analysis of the domains of breakdown" p.166]. Or, elsewhere: \Distinctions arise from recurrent patterns of breakdown in concernful activity" p.69]. Winograd and Flores seem to be extending the concept beyond what Heidegger means | e.g. for them, death is a `breakdown' p.62]. Finally, in this chapter, Winograd and Flores occasionally write that \Heidegger argues . . . ". Heidegger really doesn't construct deductive arguments: he expounds, creating expositions. This use of \argues" may be more of Winograd's and Flores's aforementioned rhetoric, their stated attempt to persuade the reader without themselves using argumentation. Here is a summary of Winograd's and Flores's Heideggerian concepts from chapter 3: interpretationism: a typical person's thoughts arise within and depend upon a background of thoughts. articulating such a background is di cult (if not impossible). avoiding background-based interpretation is impossible (but maybe only di cult).

10 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 objectivism is suspect since it requires absence of interpretation. \thrownness": typically, a person tends to act without re ecting much. \readiness-to-hand": a tool is so when one can use it automatically. \breakdown" is the failure of such automatic action. re ection | consideration of \present-at-hand" objects | occurs primarily at breakdown.

How to Read Understanding / 11

Maturanaian Concepts (Chapter 4)

In chapter 4, Winograd and Flores present a new conceptual framework | attributed primarily to Humberto R. Maturana | for biological foundations of behavior.17 They note: Much of Maturana's] writing . . . ] is directed toward revealing the pervasiveness of the pre-understanding that biologists and cognitive scientists bring to bear, and toward opening possibilities for a di erent understanding. p.40] The \pre-understanding"18 that Maturana is supposed to replace is described as follows: It has generally been taken for granted that the distinctions and relations that are applied in describing the mental domain will form a basis for examining the structures in the domain of causal mechanism. p.40] Thus, a Freudian psychologist would seek id-structures, libido-structures, egostructures, etc. in the brain whereas a Jungian psychologist would seek to determine how a brain physically communicates with the collective unconscious? Obviously, such a modus operandi is preposterous. No reasonable person could disregard neural mechanisms while formulating a theory of behavior and then seriously expect the biology to conform to the theory. Rather, what must be true is: one type of theory is formulated with a presumption never to compare behavior to physical mechanisms because the presumed necessary experimentation on humans is abhorrent; a second type of theory operates in the realm of abstraction, using statements such as \The horse knows that water is under this ground." to express convenient abstractions of underlying mechanisms to facilitate communication about the world; and a third type of theory is purely hypothetical, intended either for constructing arti cial behavior or for consideration of (unusual) possibilities for behavior.19 The foundational point for Maturana's conceptual framework is described as follows: Maturana rejects the behaviorist view, arguing that we cannot deal with `organism' and `environment' as two interacting independent things. We cannot identify stimuli that exist independently of the unity and talk about its history of responses to them. The unity itself speci es the space in which it exists, and in observing it we must use distinctions within that space. p.48] To explain further: For an] observer it makes sense to distinguish the situation of an injected irritant from one of heat. But from the standpoint of the nervous system it is not a relevant, or even possible, distinction. . . . ] The structure of the organism at any moment determines a domain of perturbations | a space of possible e ects the medium could have on the sequence of structural states that it could follow.
17 See also ethology or sociobiology, for example The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit, by Melvin Konner. 18 i.e. conceptual framework. 19 See also Ste k's and Bobrow's review AIJ 2/87 p.222 et al.] of Understanding re \straw men".

12 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 The medium selects among these patterns, but does not generate the set of possibilities. p.43] Maturana is merely expressing an assumption that already underlies work re the biological bases of behavior. Winograd and Flores indicate that the term \perturbation" should be preferable to \perception", but the latter already entails this consideration of the system's (organism's) state20 . \Perception" means that a system's perceptual mechanism is a ected in a distinguishable manner, where what is distinguishable depends on the system and the perceptual mechanism. For example, a person `perceives' green in the book's example. Conceivably, once, theories postulated pure correlations between a certain range of frequencies of light and neural signals indicating `perception' of `green', but with more information the theories changed (see \lateral inhibition") | `perception' didn't. Similarly, researchers probably know, when they use an electrode to a ect neurons, how the e ects are the same as perception and how they are di erent. Indeed, something may be lost from Maturana's perspective, as indicated in one of the preceding quotes re an observer: from the standard perspective, `perception' and deception (including experimental a ecting of neurons) may be usefully di erentiated, whereas such di erentiation seems to be abandoned under the Maturanaian perspective. The next Maturanaian idea, \structural coupling", may be interpreted as the more common expressions \adaptation" and \learning": A plastic, structure-determined system . . . ] will by necessity evolve in such a way that its activities are properly coupled to its medium. Its structure must change so that it generates appropriate changes of state triggered by speci c perturbing changes in its medium; otherwise it will disintegrate. p.45] The term \autopoiesis" | i.e. `homeostasis' 21 | is also introduced here.
20 Incidentally, the reader may want to avoid interpreting certain parts of the terminology here | e.g. \domain" and \space" | with unintended (undesirable) connotations of discreteness associated with the conceptual frameworks of mathematics or situation-calculus. 21 Winograd and Flores write: An autopoietic system is de ned as: . . . a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components that produces the components that: ( ) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate the network of processes (relation) that produced them; and ( ) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network. | Maturana and Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition (1980), p.79. Understanding, p.44] By comparison, consider: The conception of organic processes which certain] workers were articulating reached back to the ideas of Claude Bernard, set out in the middle of the previous century. Bernard had spoken of the essential metabolism of an organism as proceeding within a set of conditions which were held steady by a protective envelope of bu ering mechanisms. It was, he claimed, the maintenance in a steady state of such an `internal environment' that made life, as a distinctive phenomenon, possible. Later, Cannon coined the term `homeostasis' to describe the steady state an organism's metabolic environment had to maintain. p.195 of the chapter on `cybernetics' in Thinking Machines, by Vernon Pratt]
i ii

How to Read Understanding / 13 Next, Winograd and Flores introduce Maturana's \cognitive domain": As observers we can generate descriptions of the activity of living systems in either of two non-intersecting domains. One description deals with the structure of the system and how that structure determines behavior. Such a description is essentially ahistorical. It does not matter how the system came to be that way, only that it is. We can at the same time describe (as observers of a history of changes within the structure and the medium) the pattern of interactions by which the structure came to be, and the relationship of those changes to e ective action. It is this second domain of explanation that Maturana calls `cognitive.' The cognitive domain deals with the relevance of the changing structure of the system to behavior that is e ective for its survival. p.47] These two domains of explanation may be labeled \how" and \why". These two domains may have been excessively mixed in the past, so Maturana's distinguishing them may be useful. Similarly, here is a good point re the signi cance of time in each domain: the \how" domain focuses on almost instantaneous time, involving a state of a structure and the physical mechanisms or processes which (given the state) cause an event, whereas the \why" domain focuses on ontogeny or even phylogeny.22 The reader should be approaching this section, titled \The cognitive domain" p.46 .], carefully. Considering the title, a reader with a typical perspective on Cognitive Science would expect to read a discussion of re ection and similar cognition that (apparently) primarily humans do. Winograd and Flores mention \rejecting the metaphor of information processing as the basis for cognition" p.46], but the reader would probably continue with the afore-mentioned perspective re cognition, considering this rejected information-theory only one theory involving cognition, with the understanding of cognition itself remaining essentially unchallenged. But next, Winograd and Flores say that Maturana replaces a question about acquiring knowledge with a question about ontogeny and adaptation. The typical reader probably wouldn't understand this suggestion. Winograd and Flores continue: An answer to this question cannot be generated by comprehending how a nervous system operates, but must be grounded in a deeper understanding of how cognitive activity is common to all life, and is determined by the underlying phenomenon of autopoiesis. As Maturana observes (\Neurophysiology of cognition," 1970, p.8), \Living systems are cognitive systems, and living, as a process, is a process of cognition. This statement is valid for all organisms, with and without a nervous system." p.46] This passage | which is at an introductory place | should be completely unintelligible to a reader who does not already know what Maturana's \cognitive domain" is. Winograd and Flores mention elsewhere in a footnote p.40] that Maturana rede nes \cognitive" and \cognition"; that caveat should aid the reader here, at the beginning of this section. Further discussing the `cognitive domain', Winograd and Flores indicate why the word \cognitive" is appropriate:
22 No mention is made of intermediate time-scales. Perhaps any time-scale greater than the instantaneity indicated for a \how"-explanation makes an explanation a \why"-explanation.

14 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 It is . . . ] in this cognitive domain that we can make distinctions based on words such as `intention,' `knowledge,' and `learning.' . . . ] It is a domain for characterizing e ective action through time. . . . ] A statement like \The animal knows X" is not a statement about its state, but a statement about a pattern of actions (past and present). p.47] Thus, attribution of cognition resembles abstraction.23 This explanation of \cognitive" is surprising because it contradicts an earlier passage: The structural coupling generated by the demands of autopoiesis plays the role that we naively attribute to having a representation of the world. The frog with optic bers responding to small moving dark spots does not have a representation of ies. As a result of structural coupling, the structure of the nervous system generates patterns of activity that are triggered by speci c perturbations and that contribute to the continued autopoiesis of the frog. . . . ] It is an error to assume that the structure re ects a knowledge of the existence of ies. p.46] The intent (despite this apparent contradiction) seems to be to indicate a strong separation between the structural or physical domain and the cognitive domain, with knowing appropriate in the latter and not the former. Though Winograd and Flores don't make the point, the physical state or structure of an organism must somehow embody `cognitive' predicates such as that it \knows X" or is currently hungry, else the predicates would not be true. In a similar vein, the authors write: Maturana argues against what he calls the `fallacy of instructive interaction.' `Instructive interaction' is his term for the commonsense belief that in our interactions with our environment we acquire a direct representation of it | that properties of the medium are mapped onto (specify the states of) structures in the nervous system. He argues that because our interaction is always through the activity of the entire nervous system, the changes are not in the nature of a mapping. They are the results of patterns of activity which, although triggered by changes in the physical medium, are not representations of it. The correspondences between the structural changes and the pattern of events that caused them are historical, not structural. They cannot be explained as a kind of reference relation between neural structures and an external world. p.43] The fact that (as just described in this paper) phenotype recapitulates ontogeny undermines this argument. The correspondences mentioned by Winograd and Flores are the mapping. Regarding the holism of the nervous system invalidating its capability of participating in mappings, consider that mathematicians
Dennett, in \Mechanism and responsibility" (1973, p.246) . . . ] argues that in taking an intentional stance . . . ], all one is doing is claiming that \on occasion, a purely physical system can be so complex, and yet so organized, that we nd it convenient, explanatory, pragmatically necessary for prediction, to treat it as if it has beliefs and desires and was rational." Understanding, p.106] See also Douglas R. Hofstadter's \epiphenomena" Godel, Escher, Bach or Metamagical Themas] and Adrian Cussins's \non-conceptual content" \The Connectionist Construction of Concepts"].
23 Compare:

How to Read Understanding / 15 admit myriad representational schemes, for example between (potentially innitary) coordinates and certain holistic functions on the real interval 0; ].24 Holography is holistic representation (imaging), as Dreyfus himself touts lecture, 1988].25 And researchers have already used arti cial `neural nets' to represent various things.26 After discussing the `cognitive domain', Winograd and Flores introduce another domain, the \consensual domain" p.48], which is de ned by \interlocked patterns of behavior" p.48] or as a \mutually generated domain of interactions" p.49]. The authors add: \Maturana refers to behavior in a consensual domain as `linguistic behavior' " p.49], but this `language' is not quite identical with `consensual domain': `language' is more speci cally \mutual orienting behavior" p.49], with \its function being] to orient the orientee within his or her cognitive domain" p.49]. (Re this discussion, the reader should note that the phrase \domain of interactions" p.49] is used to refer to the `cognitive' domain.) In their explanation of why the consensual domain is needed, Winograd and Flores write: For example, when the male and female of a species develop a sequence of mutual actions of approach and recognition in a mating ritual, we as observers can understand it as a coherent pattern that includes both animals. Our description is not a description of what the male and female (viewed as mechanisms made up of physical components) do, but a description of the mating dance as a pattern of mutual interactions. p.49] However, descriptions of the \pattern of mutual interactions" | including mating-rituals | of birds (and other species) seem to be descriptions of what the birds do physically (together ying, squawking, uttering, bending, turning, jumping, etc.) and perhaps also of why they might be acting as described. Thus, since each `entity' (organism) is in any other's `medium' (environment), the original two domains, structural/physical and `cognitive', seem to su ce for explaining or describing behavior. Perhaps the `consensual domain' comprises simply the cross-products of di erent (living) systems' basic two domains. Or \consensual domain" could involve considering regularly interacting (living) systems combined as one system.27 Winograd and Flores present human language as another example of behavior requiring description in a consensual domain because language involves orientation, but orientation can be explained with reference to knowledge and intentions, thus within the `cognitive' domain. Indeed, the authors later quote Maturana using the phrase \linguistic cognitive domain" p.51], and in the next chapter, whose subject is language generally, Winograd and Flores discuss how meaning may be construed as arising from `structural coupling'; they do not mention \consensual domain". Perhaps `language' belongs to both the cognitive and the consensual domains; the reader will probably resolve this issue as
ix2i + cos(2i + 1)x2i+1 ), or something like that. See also p.8 i above (in this paper). 25 See also the discussion of holographic representation in \From Society to Landscape: Alternative Metaphors for Arti cial Intelligence", by West and Travis. 26 See Parallel Distributed Processing, by McClelland, Rumelhart, et al. 27 See mentions of \third-order structural coupling" in the discussion of Maturana's and Varela's conceptual framework in \From Society to Landscape" by West and Travis.

24 (x1 ; x2 ; : : :) $

P (sin 2

16 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 the above-described issue of the consensual domain itself is resolved.28 After thus discussing the concept of `consensual domain', Winograd and Flores indicate how (Heideggerian) interpretationism arises in Maturana's conceptual framework: Properties of things (in fact the recognition of distinct things at all) exist only as operational distinctions in a domain of distinctions speci ed by an observer. . . . ] Phenomena | i.e., the way the world presents itself to the naive observer in everyday situations | are not objective or subjective by virtue of whether they arise from internal or external events, since all knowable events are in one sense internal (resulting from internal experiences and neurophysical events). p.51] By \distinctions", Winograd and Flores seem to mean cognizances and perhaps even perceptions. (They do not explain their new use of the term.) Anyway, the authors err slightly when contrasting interpretationism with objectivism, saying: \we therefore can never have knowledge about external reality" p.50]. This statement contradicts their earlier statement that `knowing' is appropriate in the `cognitive domain'. So the \knowledge" is possible; perhaps what the authors need to say is that re the possibility of an organism's knowledge of (external) reality, such knowledge is always ltered by or otherwise dependent on the organism's biology, such as its perceptual organs.29 Winograd and Flores further write: We speak as if there were external things and properties. This is an inescapable result of using language, but it is always a speaking `as if,' not an ontological claim. p.51] Actually, presuming such is an ontological claim | indeed, a quite useful one | and it occurs within the `cognitive domain'. As in their discussion of Heideggerian concepts, Winograd and Flores say in this chapter that behavior is dependent on `society': Distinctions . . . ] presuppose some kind of social interaction in which the observer is engaged: \ The] linguistic cognitive domain . . . ] is constitutively social." | Maturana, \Biology of cognition" (1970), pp. 41, . Understanding, p.51] But being constitutive of something does not imply presupposing it and indeed typically contradicts that possibility. Apparently, Maturana says that (human) `linguistic' behavior becomes social behavior, but Winograd and Flores present just the reverse | that social behavior would enable `linguistic' behavior.
xxiv

28 Winograd and Flores further contrast language's cooperative interaction with `transmission of information' p.50], but transmission of information entails cooperative interaction: consider the cooperativeness required for transmission. Similarly, \information" simply cannot be de ned independent of a generator and a receiver. Further, transmission of information typically causes cooperative interaction, i.e. that is why organisms do it. 29 Incidentally, the organism and its reality or environment must be de ned by an observer of both of them, and this observer is (typically?) actually another organism with its own environment. (I think.)

Finally, in this chapter on Maturana, Winograd and Flores brie y illustrate the di erence between the two basic domains of explanation, for \functioning" p.52] and \purposes" p.52], using an example of a baby getting food. Then, the

How to Read Understanding / 17 authors preview how they'll later apply their perspective to computer-science. Inarticulatability is mentioned but remains unjusti ed. Concepts from this chapter include: \structural coupling": perception and reaction occur relative to an organism's ability to do so. biological characteristics (limitations?) imply interpretationism. \cognitive domain": explanations of \why" | and related terms such as \know" and \intend" | should be distinguished from explanations of \how". language: mutual interaction is signi cant.

18 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

Linguistic Concepts (Chapter 5)

Winograd and Flores begin chapter 5 re-presenting interpretationism as context-dependence in typical use of language: We cannot come up with a situation-independent de nition of what quali es as water, since after any amount of ddling with the definition, one can always come up with a new context in which it is inadequate. In making the statement \There's some water in the refrigerator," a person is not stating an objective fact. Every speech act occurs in a context, with a background shared by speaker and hearer. p.56] More than semantics or \meaning" is signi cant here. Conceivably, having multiple de nitions | as in a dictionary | could address some of the issues that Winograd and Flores discuss re water. They do not mention dictionaries, but they do mention \sense s] of the word `water']" p.55] and \a formal semantic account" p.57] of background. The authors use their claim from chapter 3 that formalization of semantics can never be complete | inarticulatability.30 Discussing lemonade as a substitute for water, Winograd and Flores indicate that what's signi cant is not semantics but felicitousness31 . An utterance is felicitous if \it is appropriate to the context in which it is uttered" p.58]. Thus, a person asking about water may be given various responses depending on the responder's understanding of the context: the questioner may be seeking something to drink, investigating rust or other water-damage, checking the responder's scienti c knowledge, etc. Certainly, multiple de nitions (e.g. of water as a drink, as a solvent(?), as a chemical, etc.) tend to be involved in such a situation, but felicitousness is key. The title of this section discussing felicitousness is \Listening in a background" p.54]. This chapter introduces Winograd's and Flores's special use of \listen": Meaning is created by an active listening. . . . ] There are many cases where acts are `listened to' without being explicit. If a] requestor can recognize satisfaction of the request directly, there may be no explicit assertion of completion. Other acts, such as declaring satisfaction, may be taken for granted if some amount of time goes by without a declaration to the contrary. What is not said is listened to as much as what is said. p.57, p.66] The reader may interpret \listen (to)" as \understand" or \comprehend". As a foil for their `felicitousness', Winograd and Flores write the following: Formal analytic approaches based on literal meaning often take as their model the language of mathematics, in which the truth of a statement can be determined without reference to outside context or situation. (In fact, as pointed out by Lakatos in Proofs and Refutations (1976), this is not really the case even in mathematics.) p.55] But \truth" in mathematics always depends upon a `model', so Winograd's and Flores's description of mathematical truth appears misleading. Their presentation of \formal analytic approaches based on literal meaning" as ignoring context appears similarly inaccurate; the `analysis' is described as follows:
30 See above re inarticulatability. 31 The book mentions \felicity" here, on p.56, but does not explain it until p.58 .

How to Read Understanding / 19 The literal meaning of a sentence is entirely determined by the meanings of its component words (or morphemes) and the syntactical rules according to which these elements are combined. | Searle, \Literal meaning" (1979), p.117. Understanding, pp. 54-55] And from what other than context do Winograd and Flores expect the \component words (morphemes)" to acquire meaning? Winograd and Flores also refer to another discussion of rationalistic linguistics elsewhere in the book (chapter 2). But even there the use of context is admitted: `Truth theoretic' characterization of meaning assumes] there is a system of rules (which may include `pragmatic' and contextual considerations) . . . p.19] Probably, Winograd and Flores dismiss the possibility of or attempts at formalizations that include context because of the claim of inarticulatability. (See also below re further linguistics.) As described, `felicitousness' names the attention to `background' (context) that is crucial to language (communication). The second section of chapter 5 presents a formalization, speech-act-theory, which attempts to handle felicitousness explicitly: The essential importance of illocutionary point is the speci cation of meaning in terms of patterns of commitment entered into by speaker and hearer by virtue of taking part in the conversation. . . . ] The ve categories of illocutionary point are: Assertives . . . ], Directives . . . ], Commissives . . . ], Expressives . . . ], and] Declarations . . . ]. pp. 58, 59] But Winograd and Flores do not accept speech-act-theory unamended. They note that as they initially describe it, \it does not go outside of the rationalistic tradition" p.60]. In the third section of chapter 5, they indicate that meaning arises through mutuality | covering both background (felicitousness) and the commitments of speech-act-theory: Our use of linguistic forms is shaped by the need for e ective coordination of action with others. . . . ] We need not base our use of a particular word on any externally determined truth conditions, and need not even be in full agreement with our language partners on the situations in which it would be appropriate. All that is required is that there be a su cient coupling so that breakdowns are infrequent, and a standing commitment by both speaker and listener to enter into dialog in the face of a breakdown. . . . ] The conditions of appropriateness for commitment naturally take into account the role of a shared unarticulated background. For example], when a person promises to do something, it goes without saying that the commitment is relative to unstated assumptions. pp. 61, 62, 63] Addressing the more typical referential perspective on language, Winograd and Flores write: Words correspond to our intuition about `reality' because our purposes in using them are closely aligned with our physical existence in a world and our actions within it. p.61] Thus, something like a `structural coupling' (which Winograd and Flores distinguish from a mathematically semantic correspondence) to the world is indicated

20 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 (if not entailed) here.32 Although the authors' basic point here re language arising via mutuality seems quite valid,33 there are some problems. The `commitment' to dialog at breakdown is presented as essential, supposedly involved in all speech-acts, but the only categories of speech-acts which seem to clearly involve such commitment are Assertives and Commissives. This discrediting of the commitmentidea undermines the validity of speech-act-theory's \taxonomy of illocutionary acts" p.58]. Winograd and Flores claim that the theory covers \all speech acts . . . ], all utterances" p.58], but it seems to not cover greetings, babies' babbling, or ction such as actors' reciting words or a `rock'-concert. The reviewer Clancey further notes: The book's idealized description of language is clear when we consider our interactions with animals and children. Shared background is minimized here, but communication is possible. AIJ 2/87 p.245] The discussion of mutuality (as the source of language) also has a few parts that the reader may not understand well. Winograd and Flores write: It would be ontologically vacuous to modify Habermas's . . . ] innity of hypothetical dialogs . . . ] in some kind of statistical or probabilistic direction, attributing meaning to a sort of `popularity poll'. p.62] But such a poll does not seem \ontologically vacuous", i.e. meaningless re existence, and indeed Kantian philosophy uses similarly hypothetical processes, appealing to a `categorical' (universal) actor34. The reader should understand the point as: polling for de nitions does not produce meaning or intentionality; using words does. Another point is that Winograd and Flores use Maturanaian concepts here, identifying \breakdown" with \disintegration of the organism" p.62], but Heidegger does not identify `breakdown' with death; rather, \breakdown" should be more accurately associated with change of the `structural coupling'. Finally, the reader should realize that implicit in Winograd's and Flores's discussion here and in the rest of the book is the application of this speech-act-theory of utterances to unvocalized communication; such extension matches the Maturanaian identi cation of language with all mutual interaction, but the details (including justi cation) of the extension aren't discussed. While the second and third sections of chapter 5 focus on individual speechacts with their encompassing conversations as parts of their backgrounds, the fourth section focuses on the conversations themselves. Winograd and Flores discuss \regularities in the use of language" p.64] within \the domain of conversation". First, they discuss: speech acts that constitute straightforward conversations for action | those in which an interplay of requests and commissives are directed towards explicit cooperative action. p.64]

32 Winograd and Flores consider relationships between language-users more signi cant to language than any relationship between a language-user and reality: The regularities in the use of language grow out of mutual coupling among language users, not the coupling of the individual to some external reality. p.64] But conceivably, the two types of relationship are equally determinative of language. 33 Compare: \We may say, generally, that speech consists, with some exceptions, of noises made by persons with a view to causing desired actions by other persons" An Inquiry into Meaning & Truth, by Bertrand Russell, 1940]. 34 See also the legal `reasonable person'.

How to Read Understanding / 21 They present a network showing the various states of such a conversation and the speech-acts by which such a conversation changes state. This model resembles theoretical automata of computer-science. Next, Winograd and Flores discuss \a `logic of argument' " p.67], i.e. argumentation, which they indicate is used to justify Assertives of speech-act-theory. The authors concentrate on the \ `grounding' that should occur] in case of a breakdown" p.67]: \There are three basic kinds of grounding: experiential . . . ], formal . . . ], and social . . . ]" p.67]; the reader may interpret \grounding" as \justi cation" and the given three types as scienti c, deductive, and hearsay, respectively. Making the nal point of this section, Winograd and Flores write: In our examination of these recurrent patterns of conversation, we must keep in mind that they exist in the domain of the observed conversation, not in some mental domain of the participants. p.68] In introducing the domain in which they discuss these \regularities in the use of language" p.64], Winograd and Flores write: Linguistic behavior can be described in several distinct domains. The relevant regularities are not in individual speech acts (embodied in sentences) or in some kind of explicit agreement about meanings. They appear in the domain of conversation, in which successive speech acts are related to one another. p.64] The reader may interpret these three domains as the traditional syntax (\individual speech acts . . . sentences"), semantics (\meanings"), and pragmatics/discourse (\conversation"), respectively. Another place where labels aren't as might be expected is on the network for a \conversation for action" p.65]. Considering that Winograd and Flores present speech-act-theory | with its taxonomy for \all utterances" | almost immediately preceding this model for a `conversation for action', one might expect that they would use labels from speech-act-theory for the conversation. Perhaps they do not indicate their superseding of original speech-act-theory (see above). Incidentally, the diagram for the conversation is lacking some arcs that are indicated in the text: various opportunities for modifying conditions of the request are not shown. Winograd and Flores incompletely discuss their posited regularities of argumentation. Why are the three types of grounding that they mention \basic" p.67]? What of authority, a typical grounding for (e.g.) parents, where utterances should be heeded simply by virtue of the speaker's identity, with no appeal to further `grounding' | a parent needn't justify commands. Perhaps the authors meant to include authority in \social" `grounding'. The reader may want to consider alternative lists of the most important types of grounding, e.g. the list: experience, authority, and informal logic. There's also the question of why some types of `grounding' are more important or used more frequently than others; convenience may be a metric. Incidentally, re formal logic, Winograd and Flores write: The role of analogy and metaphor will be more central when the focus is on patterns of discourse between individuals with a shared background rather than on deductive inference from axioms. p.68] Law is a signi cant exception to this claim. In discussing the nal point of this section, that these regularities of conversation aren't consciously used by the conversers, Winograd and Flores write:

22 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 A speaker and hearer do not apply `conversation pattern rules' any more than they apply `perception rules' or `deduction rules.' . . . ] When we are engaged in successful language activity, the conversation is not present-at-hand, as something observed. p.68] As discussed above re chapter 3, this point should be modi ed: people are not completely unaware of the patterns of their conversations; awareness of such tends to be weak, but not nil. Winograd and Flores begin the last section of chapter 5 as follows: So far in this chapter we have emphasized two main points: 1. Meaning arises in listening to the commitment expressed in speech acts. 2. The articulation of content | how we talk about the world | emerges in recurrent patterns of breakdown and the potential for discourse about grounding. p.68] But the reader may not see either of the two listed points \emphasized" elsewhere in the chapter. The chapter's preceding material indicates that meaning arises from `coupling' to other people and the world, with `commitment' a hidden factor. \Articulation of background assumptions" p.67] is mentioned (cursorily), and certainly language involves or presupposes this `background', but the `background' does not alone constitute typical \talk about the world"; the mentioned \articulation" is described as occurring only at `breakdown', when `grounding' is attempted. Apparently, Winograd and Flores assume, as they indicate in chapter 3, the semi35 -Heideggerian idea that any thing | in this case, any word (or language generally?) arises (to human attention) only during some `breakdown'. They don't say so elsewhere in chapter 5. Only here, in the last section, do they give such an indication: Distinctions arise from recurrent patterns of breakdown in concernful activity. There are a variety of human activities, including drinking, putting out res, and washing, for which the absence or presence of \water" determines a space of potential breakdowns. Words arise to help anticipate and cope with these breakdowns. p.69] This idea of things36 arising only in `breakdowns' is unjusti ed. As discussed above (re chapter 3), Heidegger does not propose it. The competing idea that Winograd and Flores mention seems more plausible: in the competing theory, language (and ontology) arises primarily via \simple recurrences of physical activity and sensory experience" p.69]. Other factors would include desire and ability to communicate, signi cance | as with non-recurrent but special events | and convenience. Thus, Winograd's and Flores's Eskimos would `have a large number of words for forms of snow not because of breakdowns, but because there are recurrent activities and situations for which the words (describing snow as good or bad for dog-sledding or snow-shoeing or igloo-making or snowballghting or . . . ) are relevant' cf. p.69].37
\cognizances". 37 Compare: \Meanings of . . . ] words . . . ] are causal properties of noises acquired through the mechanism of conditioned re exes" An Inquiry into Meaning & Truth, pp.264{65, by Bertrand Russell].
35 See above re chapter 3. 36 As noted above re Maturanaian concepts, the term \distinctions" may be interpreted as

How to Read Understanding / 23 After presenting those two points, Winograd and Flores write: From these points, we are led to a more radical recognition about language and existence: Nothing exists except through language. p.68] They have a related implication earlier in this chapter, where they mention \our existence in language" p.59]. They explain, here: In saying that some `thing' exists (or that it has some property), we have brought it into a domain of articulated objects and qualities that exists in language and through the structure of language, constrained by our potential for action in the world. pp. 68{69] The explanation indicates that this point is vacuous; it is: speaking of something brings it into the domain of language.38 Winograd and Flores may be attempting to echo an earlier Heideggerian point re \existence" (see above). Here they admit that \we see many things we don't bother talking about" p.69], but nonetheless the most reasonable understanding of this point is as interpretationism re language. Winograd and Flores propose to use this point in part of Understanding, mentioning that \naive views of objects and properties are clearly inadequate" p.69]. Actually, at this place in the book, they haven't yet shown such \clear" inadequacy. They make a similar statement about \ `software,' `interfaces,' and `user interactions' " p.69], none of which they've discussed yet.
II

A nal criticism of this chapter is that it contains anthropocentrism. Winograd and Flores have: This world is always already organized around fundamental human projects and depends upon these projects for its being and organization. p.58] We use language in human activities. p.62] It is easy to nd examples that cannot be conceived of as existing outside the domain of human commitment and interaction, such as \friendship," \crisis," and \semantics." p.69] The rst quote here may be excused as referring to a human-interpreted world, and the second is merely tautologous. Re the third, the reader should know that wolves demonstrate friendship (see Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat), dolphins threatened by a shark probably demonstrate crisis, and bees interpreting one bee's signals re the location of owers demonstrate semantics; also, if there are any extra-terrestrial intelligences in this extensive universe, then these terms may also be applicable to them. Recapitulating somewhat, the points of this chapter are: context-dependence or felicitousness in language entails interpretationism. meaning of a person's utterance depends upon coupling to other people and to the world.

There's . . . ] nothing you can sing that can't be sung, Nothing you can say . . . in \All You Need Is Love", by John Lennon & Paul McCartney (but not John McCarthy), c 1967 Northern Songs Ltd., all rights for the U.S.A. controlled by Maclen Music, Inc.]

38 Coincidentally, the Beatles say:

24 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 people should be committed to `ground' (resolve/justify) at `breakdowns' (misunderstandings). speech-act-theory furnishes a (partial) taxonomy of communications. some types of conversations, e.g. `conversations for action', can be modeled via regularized patterns.

How to Read Understanding / 25

Summary of the WF Conceptual Framework (Chapter 6)

Winograd and Flores begin chapter 6 indicating that it summarizes the preceding chapters: As background to our study of computers and programming in part , this chapter] summarizes the concerns raised in previous chapters, pointing out their areas of overlap and the role they play in our detailed examination of computer technology and design. p.70] In this chapter's rst section, on ontology, the authors reiterate Heidegger's `being-in-the-world' and Maturana's `cognition'. This section also contains hints indicating how these ideas may be used to discuss computers | the topic of part , which begins with chapter 7. An initial point here is that an error of the rationalistic tradition involves the idea that \detached re ection, as in] deciding where to go for lunch, . . . ] can serve as a basis for understanding the full range of what we might call `cognition' " p.71]. Rather, \our acts . . . ] cannot be understood as the results of a process (conscious or non-conscious) of representing, planning, and reasoning" p.71]. The reader may want to consult Daniel Dennett (see also below re p.106) re how the criticized perspective actually may be useful. Winograd and Flores say: \cognition is] not . . . ] activity in some mental realm, but . . . ] a pattern of behavior" p.71]. Certainly, cognition is behavior or \a pattern of behavior", but such behavior is mental activity | activity in Maturana's `cognitive domain'. Winograd and Flores indicate that the \labels" \ `thinking' and `making decisions' " p.72] should not be applied to computer programs, but in Maturana's `cognitive domain' p.47], these labels are appropriate. Maturana indicates that while the physical mechanisms of acts may not involve \representation" or \planning", it is reasonable to describe the acts using such ideas | in the `cognitive domain' p.47]. Turning to computers, Winograd and Flores write: \In a tradition that emphasizes thought as an independent activity, we will tend to design systems to work within that domain" p.71]. Why would this point be true? It seems more plausible that entities tend to design systems which work however they can; it may simply be true that few are su ciently creative to consider methods unconstrained by the prevailing conceptual framework (i.e. Kuhnian `paradigm'), e.g. the rationalistic tradition. Winograd and Flores continue: If, on the other hand, we take action as primary, we will ask how computers can play a role in the kinds of actions that make up our lives | particularly the communicative acts that create requests and commitments and that serve to link us to others. p.72] This view seems excessively application-oriented. Certainly, most interest in design is due to utilitarianism, wanting useful technology. But some `design' or research involves simple curiosity and exploration | what can a computer do (and how fast)? Also, Winograd's and Flores's emphasizing communication seems unjusti ed; they do not (here) indicate why communication is the (human) action most appropriate for computers to aid. Continuing to apply their perspective to computers, Winograd and Flores contrast the rationalistic tradition's detached analysis with WF `structural coupling'. They begin: The rationalistic tradition emphasizes the role played by analytical understanding and reasoning in the process of interacting with our
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26 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 world, including our tools. p.72] Actually, no one expects people to be particularly analytical while eating breakfast or driving a car. Analysis is considered important,39 but not, presumptuously, in all domains. Winograd and Flores continue: Heidegger and Maturana, in their own ways, point to the importance of readiness-to-hand (structural coupling) and the ways in which objects and properties come into existence when there is an unreadiness or breakdown in that coupling. From this standpoint, the designer of a computer tool must work in the domain generated by the space of potential breakdowns. The current emphasis on creating `user-friendly' computers is an expression of the implicit recognition that earlier systems were not designed with this domain su ciently in mind. p.72] See above re the idea that everything arises from breakdowns. Regardless, the motivation for design such as that involving `user-friendliness' is better described as convenience rather than the complicated WF mechanisms involving (perhaps automatic/unconscious/`thrown') consideration of spaces of potential failures or misunderstandings. `User-friendly' designers want to make their systems easily comprehensible and usable so people will buy them, and designers use mechanisms which are familiar to them, where the mechanisms become familiar not via repeated failures (`breakdowns') but via repeated use. While consideration of past systems that were obtuse, unwieldy, or faulty probably occurs during design, and while some consideration of potential misunderstandings or failures probably occurs also, Winograd's and Flores's description of design is simply convoluted. (See also below, re part .)
III

In the second section of chapter 6, Winograd and Flores discuss epistemology. They begin by mentioning, as a foil, a \ `naive realism' that is . . . ] pervasive . . . ] within the rationalistic tradition" p.72]. As discussed elsewhere in this paper, the authors' presentation of these views is simplistic. Reviewing their own ideas, Winograd and Flores reiterate the interpretationism of Maturana and Heidegger. They also repeat the point that they incorrectly attribute to Heidegger, namely: \that present-at-hand objects emerge from a more fundamental state of being in which readiness-to-hand does not distinguish objects or properties" p.73]. The authors further indicate that Maturana supports this point: \in the domain of biological mechanism, objects and properties] do not exist" p.73]. This isn't quite Maturana's point; his view is indicated better in a preceding sentence: \Maturana sees the presence of objects and properties as relevant only in a domain of distinctions made by an observer" p.73]. The key word here is \relevant": the existence of the objects (and properties) is almost irrelevant for Maturana in this domain, as when the stimulation of an electrode is equivalent to the perception of some object or property or event. But such irrelevance does not imply nonexistence, and Maturana doesn't claim such.40 A last point here re Winograd's and Flores's discussion of realism concerns the following passage: Heidegger and Maturana] recognize that we are situated in a world that is not of our own making. Their central insight is that this
39 See Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; an Inquiry into Values, by Robert M. Pirsig. 40 However, see also elsewhere where \existence" is rede ned.

How to Read Understanding / 27 world, constituted as a world of objects and properties, arises only in the concernful activities of the person. p.73] While the rst sentence here may be a truism, the second seems somewhat contradictory because of the con ict between \not of one's] own making" and \only via one's] activities". The con ict may be resolved by adopting the perspective that there are two worlds involved, as indicated by Maturana's structural domain versus the domain of the observer. Consequently, the second sentence here might be better phrased as: The world of objects and properties arises only in . . . . Next addressing the issue of representation, which is a particular theory of epistemology, Winograd and Flores mention people's \misplaced concreteness" p.73]; the discussion here echoes the discussion in chapter 4, which is addressed above in this paper. Re Heidegger, Winograd and Flores write: Heidegger makes a more radical critique, questioning the distinction between a conscious, re ective, knowing `subject' and a separable `object'. He sees representation as a derivative phenomenon, which occurs only when there is a breaking down of our concernful action. pp.73{74] Actually, checking Heidegger's works reveals that he doesn't admit to any (mental) representation. And it's not the \distinction" between subject and object that troubles him | a person can think about him- or her-self | it's the separation, or more precisely, the independence: traditional representationalism presupposes that objects are independent of subjects and therefore must somehow be represented; Heidegger counters, as just noted p.73], that subjects de ne objects (see above re interpretationism and related concepts in chapter 3 of the book). Finally, re Heidegger, Winograd and Flores mention \knowledge" p.74]. Heidegger doesn't refer much to knowledge, so a more accurate phrasing of the book's sentence might be: \Knowing lies in the Being that situates us in our worlds." Winograd and Flores conclude this section noting that a \representation hypothesis" p.74] is true of computer-systems;41 they mention that they plan to discuss such, including the `physical symbol system hypothesis', in succeeding chapters.42 In the third section of chapter 6, Winograd and Flores review the concept of \pre-understanding" or \background". Inexpediently, they begin the section with some unclear expressions. For example, they use \openness" p.74], apparently in a special ( gurative) sense, but they do not explain what they mean by the term; they probably mean \receptiveness". They also say: \An individual's pre-understanding is a result of experience within a tradition" p.74]; but they do not explain whence arises this \tradition". And they mention \language (and other meaningful actions)" p.74] without indicating what might be these \other meaningful actions". Better reviewing the preceding chapters, they reiterate the idea that \language . . . ] can occur only between individuals who share to a large degree
pothesis: \A physical symbol system . . . ] has the necessary and su cient means for general intelligent action" The Sciences of the Arti cial, by Herbert A. Simon]. The authors also do not discuss the hypothesis's \necessary" component. This component is obviously false: no human has little tokens running around inside his or her head.
41 See below re computer-programs which lack explicit representations of their domains. 42 Winograd and Flores do not include in Understanding a standard statement of the hy-

28 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 the same background" p.74], and they also reiterate their (unjusti ed) claim of inarticulatability of background. The authors also write: Arti cial intelligence is an attempt to build a full account of human cognition into a formal system (a computer program). p.75] This statement is incorrect because not all researchers of `arti cial intelligence' seek to construct formal systems and because accounting for human cognition is the task of psychologists, not of researchers of `arti cial intelligence'. Winograd and Flores continue: The computer operates with a background only to the extent that the background is articulated and embodied in its programs. p.75] But the \background" may be embodied without being articulated.43 In the fourth section of chapter 6, Winograd and Flores review their ideas re language and commitment. They say that \language cannot be understood as the transmission of information" p.76], as before (see above | a footnote) simplistically interpreting \transmission of information". Reviewing Maturana's concept of language, they say: \Language is a form of human social action, directed towards the creation of what Maturana calls `mutual orientation' " p.76]. Actually, for Maturana `language' is \mutual orientation". Winograd and Flores next mention \commitment as the basis for language" p.76] | but still (see above) without justi cation. Then they reiterate their \emphasis of language being situated] in a social structure rather than in the mental activity of individuals" p.76]. This point is somewhat truistic since language typically involves more than one person, yet individuals' mental activity is certainly necessary to language. Winograd and Flores continue: The rationalistic tradition takes language as a representation | a carrier of information | and conceals its central social role. p.76] As discussed above, that carrying of information entails a social role. Finally, re human language, Winograd and Flores have: To be human is to be the kind of being that generates commitments, through speaking and listening. This statement has various conceptual aws; as counter-examples, consider: infants, people in comas, people simply asleep, old people who are witless, insane people, Helen Keller, and | contrapositively | non-human extra-terrestrial intelligences (if there are any) and birds. To explain re birds, consider matingrituals (including singing), which establish commitment to mate and care for young. A good example is the ringdove, for which correlated physiological changes in both male and female during courtship ensure commitment.44 The human species certainly isn't de ned by its behavior; it's de ned by its genome.45 Turning to computers, Winograd and Flores write the truism: \computers are fundamentally tools" p.76]. They then claim: Computers . . . ] are incapable of making commitments and cannot themselves enter into language. p.76]
43 See Parallel Distributed Processing, edited by Rumelhart et al, or \Intelligence without Representation", by Rodney A. Brooks. 44 See pp. 270{271 of The Tangled Wing, by Melvin Konner. 45 Actually, more precisely, a species is de ned by its members' capabilities for interbreeding.

How to Read Understanding / 29 Apparently, Winograd and Flores intend to prove this proposition in part . (They have here a little more discussion which similarly seems to defer to part .) Winograd and Flores begin the fth and last section of chapter 6 noting that problems are context-dependent: \A `problem' always arises . . . ] in relation to a background" p.77]. Winograd and Flores also indicate that such context-dependence is not recognized in the rationalistic tradition, but see elsewhere in this paper. Next, the authors repeat their mis-presentation of when objects are (or become) \present-at-hand" p.78] | except a \perhaps" indicates that Winograd and Flores do acknowledge a more correct interpretation of Heidegger's point re this concept: Breakdowns reveal] to us the nature of our practices and equipment, making them `present-to-hand' sic] to us, perhaps for the rst time. p.78] Winograd and Flores say that they prefer the concept \breakdown" to the rationalistic \problem". p.77] However, the term \breakdown" applies to a more restricted range of situations than does the term \problem". As Winograd and Flores describe, a `breakdown' is: \the interrupted movement of our habitual, standard, comfortable `being-in-the-world' " p.77] | when that automatic processing fails. The task of addressing this particular type of failure, a `breakdown', is a `problem'. But people can pose other problems for themselves, e.g. to climb a mountain (and return). Similarly, the following statement seems more accurate for `problem' than for `breakdown': \A design constitutes an interpretation of breakdown and a committed attempt to anticipate future breakdowns" p.78]. Winograd and Flores also have here: \New design can be created and implemented only in the space that emerges in the recurrent structure of breakdown" p.78]. This statement indicates that a typical person can base what he or she does essentially only on experience, with the \space" including what he or she might hypothesize as possibilities compatible with experience. The concept of `breakdown' is unnecessary to de ning experience, and it may further be distracting because it focuses attention on irregularities in experience, whereas regularities are more signi cant (see also above re recurrence, e.g. of snow). In a discussion re language, Winograd and Flores reiterate their rejection of representationalism as follows: Knowledge and understanding (in both the cognitive and linguistic senses) do not result from formal operations on mental representations of an objectively existing world. p.78] Indeed, formal operations usually don't occur and considering the world objective probably oversimpli es; nonetheless, this statement would be more accurate if it were less absolute, perhaps including words such as \usually". (See also above.) This statement re representationalism is embedded in text reiterating Winograd's and Flores's emphasis of social versus individual cognition. (See also above re such matters.) Much of each individual's actions and cognition depend signi cantly on his or her previous experiences with other people, but Winograd and Flores excessively emphasize this social factor, indeed negating the role of the individual. Naturally, this perspective of theirs leads them to also emphasize language as \a constitutive medium" p.78], reiterating their idea that \Nothing exists except through language" p.68].
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30 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 The nal points of this section are re computers: Our central claim in this book is that the current theoretical discourse about computers is based on a misinterpretation of the nature of human cognition and language. Computers designed on the basis of this misconception provide only impoverished possibilities for modeling and enlarging the scope of human understanding. They are restricted to representing knowledge as the acquisition and manipulation of facts, and communication as the transferring of information. As a result, we are now witnessing a major breakdown in the design of computer technology | a breakdown that reveals the rationalistically oriented background of discourse in which our current understanding is embedded. pp. 78{79] While these matters should be discussed in part of Understanding, a few points can be made here: Yes, standard theory of computation | including the pre-1950 foundational concepts of the Von Neumann architecture and the Turing-machine | involved a serial and centrally-controlled model of human processing that is now considered inaccurate. But computer-science has long been independent of psychology, though either eld may appropriate ideas from the other. Re the restriction to use of facts, parallel distributed processing can avoid this restriction. Parallelism of various aspects of computers is certainly becoming popular now, but this trend is due more to recent technological advances, cheapening of certain types of hardware, and availability of funding for research, rather than being due to failures (\breakdowns") of computers. Perhaps by \computers", Winograd and Flores actually mean symbol-based `arti cial intelligence'. Re that subject, people are becoming disenchanted with some aspects of it, nding many of their goals impractical, but what's done doesn't fail | a `breakdown' of the entire eld is not happening (nor has been happening, nor was happening when Understanding was published). Indeed, it seems reasonable that the accountability and explicitness of this approach will continue to be exploited by researchers. (See also below re \systematic domains" pp. 131, 174].)
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How to Read Understanding / 31

Concluding Remarks re Part

As noted above, Winograd and Flores begin chapter 6 of Understanding specifying that it is intended as summary of preceding chapters. Also, at the beginning, they have some general statements about the preceding chapters: The previous chapters have dealt with fundamental questions of what it means to exist as a human being. . . . ] The importance of the work of] Maturana, Heidegger, Gadamer, Austin, Searle, and others . . . ] lies in its potential for unconcealing the rationalistic tradition in which we are already immersed. Their unity lies in the elements of the tradition that they challenge, and thereby reveal. p.70] The comment re \human being" lends the described chapters an air of anthropocentrism that they don't have; anthropocentrism is a theme there, but it is not an overriding concern. The preceding chapters \deal with" Being, biology, and language (respectively). Similarly, `unconcealing rationalism' is only a minor theme of part of Understanding. Instead, this part concentrates on developing a conceptual framework di erent from the rationalistic one. Actually, the mentioned authors \challenge" rationalism less than they \reveal" it. For example, Maturana explains what is meant by \knowing" rather than challenging the concept. Further, as indicated above re preceding chapters, the `rationalistic tradition' may include some WF concepts, e.g. homeostasis (`autopoiesis') or the signi cance (but not supremeness) of society. Thus, the book does not present a completely new orientation (Cf. p.8 of Understanding). Here's a somewhat ordered list of WF concepts, where later concepts depend on earlier ones: structural-determinism/background/tradition, structuralcoupling/thrownness/readiness-to-hand, breakdown, interpretationism, blindness to what is not articulated or not in the background,46 language comprising all interactions arising in consensual domains of structural coupling with commitment to auxiliary dialogue at breakdowns, everything cognizable existing through language, computers as mere communicative devices (or Heideggerian equipment), and design (which will be more fully discussed later). The reader may disagree with some of these concepts, but they do constitute a conceptual framework.
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46 Actually, the book does not properly present `blindness' until after part I.

32 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

The Rationalistic Tradition and Computers: Description and Critique (Part )

II

As described in this paper's introduction, Understanding 's chapter 2 belongs with part , so that chapter is addressed here.
II

Introduction (Description) of the Rationalistic Tradition (Chapter 2)

A paragraph that is introductory though it appears after a couple of the chapter's pages is as follows: A caveat is in order. In presenting certain] elements as part of an overall rationalistic tradition, we are aware that they are not uniformly accepted in carefully reasoned work of analytic philosophers. However it would be a mistake to therefore not take this tradition seriously. It pervades the work of those same philosophers and of researchers in computer science and psychology as well. In moments of careful re ection they acknowledge the importance of phenomena that are not subject to the rationalistic style of analysis, but in their day-to-day work they proceed as though everything were. In generating theories and in building programs, they operate in a style that is fully consistent with the naive tradition and avoid areas in which it breaks down. In the end, we are really concerned not with the philosophical arguments, but with a broader phenomenon | the role of a tradition in giving orientation to people who do not consider themselves philosophers, but whose ways of thinking nevertheless embody a philosophical orientation. pp. 16{17] The main point here is that the rationalistic orientation need not be explicit in work re philosophy, cognitive science, etc., but it underlies such work. It's part of the perspective within which researchers operate, just as assumptions re gravity or property can be part of the perspective within which people operate.47 However, the reader should avoid being improperly in uenced by Winograd's and Flores's deprecatory diction such as contrasting researchers' and philosophers' \day-to-day work" with \careful re ection" instead of, say, more introspective re ection, and using \naive" to describe the tradition, which is old and well-proven valuable, instead of, say, using the adjective to describe some of the tradition's users. Further, the authors' indication (in the nal sentence of this excerpt) that what concerns them is not philosophical argumentation re issues such as rationalism, but instead the less controversial phenomenon of traditions, is false: they clearly present a philosophy in part of the book, and also clearly (as stated e.g. on p.8) they intend to challenge the rationalistic tradition, not merely to discuss the subject of `traditions'. Winograd's and Flores's rst step in explaining the rationalistic tradition is as follows:
I

47 In their review of Understanding, Ste k and Bobrow miss this point re tacit perspective shared across disciplines: \Apparently, the rationalistic tradition . . . ] is a strange composite. . . . ] It is not clear to whom Winograd and Flores] might ascribe this mess" AIJ 2/87 p.222]. However, most of Ste k's and Bobrow's general \straw man" criticism is accurate (see elsewhere, e.g. below re chapter 2's presentation of semantics).

How to Read Understanding / 33 We can begin to reveal the rationalistic tradition by considering the question \What do you do when faced with some problem whose solution you care about?" The rationalistic orientation can be depicted in a series of steps: 1. Characterize the situation in terms of identi able objects with well-de ned properties. 2. Find general rules that apply to situations in terms of those objects and properties. 3. Apply the rules logically to the situation of concern, drawing conclusions about what should be done. pp. 14{15] This account confuses what people do with how they describe what they do. Winograd's and Flores's description applies to the latter process, but usually not to the former. For example, a good (human) chess-player simply sees a best move; he or she (usually) doesn't consciously apply explicit rules. By contrast, in explaining the move, the person can only refer to objects, properties, and rules, which approximate his or her thoughts. Later, Winograd and Flores have: Areas of mathematics, such as symbolic logic and automata theory, are taken as the basis for formalizing what goes on when a person perceives, thinks, and acts. p.16] But \what goes on" may di er from the formalization of it. (Winograd and Flores don't mention this point.) After this general description, Winograd and Flores describe paradigmatic science, including a `textbook' description of the scienti c method. But then they write: The rationalistic orientation not only underlies both pure and applied science but is also regarded, perhaps because of the prestige and success that modern science enjoys, as the very paradigm of what it means to think and be intelligent. p.16] This claim that rationality is considered paradigmatic thinking may be true, but there's no consensus re what \intelligence" means except a vague capability for certain complex behaviors | actions that are . . . intelligent. Winograd and Flores continue: For someone trained in science and technology it may seem selfevident that the rationalistic orientation] is the right (or even the only) approach to serious thinking. Indeed, this is why many workers in arti cial intelligence nd critiques like that of Dreyfus (What Computers Can't Do, 1979) obviously wrong since they challenge this deep-seated pre-understanding. In defense, they argue that the only conceivable alternative is some kind of mysticism, religion, or fuzzy thinking that is a throwback to earlier stages of civilization. p.16] Whereas the preceding claim was about people generally (including historical gures such as Plato) considering rationality the best way to think, here is a claim that certain researchers hold a belief that rationality is the only reasonable way to think. Such a belief of researchers of `arti cial intelligence' may lack signi cance to the extent that these researchers don't have authority as psychologists, but regardless, such rationalistic (folk) psychology is not as popular

34 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 as Winograd and Flores claim: for example, textbooks re `arti cial intelligence' neither mention the belief nor include it tacitly.48 Winograd's and Flores's claim that such a belief exists is further weakened by their lack of citations, e.g. of rationalists arguing that the only alternatives to their view are mysticism etc. Most of the second section of chapter 2 is a presentation of semantics, of which Ste k and Bobrow say: \Such an oversimpli ed account . . . ] weakens the e ect of Winograd's and Flores's] criticisms of the elements of this `tradition' " AIJ 2/87 p.221]; Ste k and Bobrow say that Winograd and Flores present \straw men" for easy \burning" AIJ 2/87 p.222]. Signi cant issues are context and categories of utterances. Considering that the most recent citation in this section is from 1976, a decade before Understanding was published, it's clear that this section is simply out-of-date re modern theories of semantics; the reader should refer to sources such as survey-articles in Foundations of Cognitive Science, edited by Michael I. Posner and published in (late) 1989. See also elsewhere in this paper re chapter 9 of Understanding. Winograd and Flores conclude this section mentioning rationalists' \ `representation hypothesis,' in which it is assumed that thought is the manipulation of representation structures in the mind" p.20]. While some may think so, people generally don't believe that all thought is so. In the third section of chapter 2, Winograd and Flores present formalized decision-making and formal problem-solving. Each discipline, and managementscience with the rst, may be characterized as an attempt to apply formal methods | including symbolic or discrete representation, calculation, and formal reasoning | to a speci c domain of human activity. These are standard disciplines, and the book's presentation is straightforward. Winograd and Flores discuss \cognitive science" in the fourth section of chapter 2. They present the idea of a \research programme" p.24], which is \a background of beliefs about how things are" p.24] and which \invisibly shapes what scientists] choose to do and how they choose to do it" p.24]. They also have: E orts to understand and modify the research programme are made within that same context, and can never escape it to produce an `objective' or `correct' approach. p.24] This claim, re limitations, is signi cant and is discussed elsewhere in the book, being presented in part p.29 and p.32] and used to challenge the rationalistic tradition in part pp. 97 . and 111 .] (see above and below re `inarticulatability'). After mentioning various aspects of cognitive science, including cognitive psychology, Winograd and Flores describe \ `information-processing psychology' " p.25]. They then say: This approach is not incompatible with the earlier non-computational models. In general the rules postulated as governing recurrences could be embedded in appropriate programs. p.25]
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48 Except consider Herbert Simon.

How to Read Understanding / 35 But actually, though a connectionist architecture may be programmable on a standard computer, the architecture needn't operate \by symbolizing external and internal situations and events" p.25]. (See various examples in Parallel Distributed Processing, edited by Rumelhart et al.) As they begin to discuss `arti cial intelligence', Winograd and Flores mention that \the sparse experimental situations of cognitive psychology . . . ] have . . . ] obvious limitations" p.25]. But the limitations aren't obvious; indeed, there may be none. The authors say that these limitations led researchers to `arti cial intelligence', whose results \are then taken as theories of the corresponding human behavior" p.25]. (Winograd and Flores quote Herbert Simon expressing such a view and also the view of `information-processing psychology'. p.26]) But this claim is not universally accurate as a description of the motivations of all researchers of `arti cial intelligence'. Some of `arti cial intelligence' is a continuation of cognitive psychology, but the former also includes exploration of possibilities for cognition regardless of whether humans actually use such methods; some `pure' scienti c curiosity is involved, and so are utilitarian factors such as getting machines to do complicated tasks so humans needn't. Winograd and Flores also describe `arti cial intelligence' itself as \the design and testing of computer programs that carry out activities patterned after human thought and language" p.25]. This description is somewhat accurate, but \human thought and language" should be generalized to \human behavior", or simply, \behavior".49 At the end of chapter 2, Winograd and Flores write: \We have outlined in this chapter . . . ] the underlying assumptions of the rationalistic tradition" p.26]. But have they? Although Winograd and Flores don't present matters thus, a summarizing concept is formalism, consisting of discretizing analysis, representationalism, and formal processing.

49 Thus, a better name for the eld is \arti cial behavior".

36 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

Description of Computers and Standard `Arti cial Intelligence' (Chapter 7 and Sections 8.1 and 8.2)
Winograd and Flores continue their description of the rationalistic tradition in chapter 7 and sections 8.1 and 8.2, focusing on computers and standard work on `arti cial intelligence'. Since all of this material is description, unlike the criticism in the succeeding sections of chapter 8, sections 8.1 and 8.2 belong with chapter 7; the whole might be renamed, say: \(Description of) Computers and `Arti cial Intelligence' ". The material is discussed here as though it were presented thus (though the given sections' numbering is maintained). A further organizational point involves order within chapter 7. Section 7.2 includes description of a hierarchy of perspectives on the computer. Some issues re this hierarchy are presented in the rst half of section 7.3, and that section's title, \Can computers do more than you tell them to do?", is irrelevant to these issues; so this rst half of section 7.3 belongs with section 7.2. Programming is situated within the hierarchy of section 7.2, but programming is discussed in section 7.1 . The following discussion treats chapter 7 in the order: section 7.2, the rst half of section 7.3, section 7.1, and then the second half of section 7.3. As just indicated, Winograd and Flores present a hierarchy of levels of description of \a computer running a typical arti cial intelligence program" in section 7.2. The description is standard (in computer science), including \the physical machine" p.87], \the logical machine" p.87], \the abstract machine" p.88], \a high-level language" p.88], and \a representation scheme for `facts' " p.89]. Two minor points here are: Programs for arti cial intelligence use the symbol-structures of a higher-level language to represent facts about the world. p.89] There is no intelligible correspondence between operations at distant levels. p.90] While these statements apply to most situations, there are a few signi cant exceptions. (See parallel distributed processing etc.) As also indicated above, Winograd and Flores discuss issues re the hierarchy of section 7.2 in the rst half of section 7.3. A standard issue is that of control of resources: \There may be properties of the machine that can be described only at a lower level but which are relevant to the e ciency with which the higher-level operations are carried out" p.91]. Winograd and Flores indicate a less standard issue as follows: A person writing a program at any one level often needs to understand (and potentially modify) how it is represented at the one below. The domain of breakdowns generated by the lower levels must be re ected in the domain for understanding the higher ones. This kind of interdependence is universally viewed as a defect in the system, and great pains are taken to avoid it, but it can never be avoided completely. p.91] The implication here is that aside from considerations of e ciency/resources (or other issues?), failures require a user to know how low levels work. But actually, users predominantly rely on service- or maintenance-people to handle failures. Winograd's and Flores's second claim here re people disliking \cross-level dependencies" p.91] may refer to portability of programs, but that depends more on the societal issue of standardization than on computer-science.

How to Read Understanding / 37 Representationalism is the theme of section 7.1; Winograd and Flores present programming as depending on it: The . . . ] signi cant aspects of computer systems . . . ] arise from their . . . ] organization as collections of interacting components (both physical and computational) based on a formalization of some aspect of the world. p.83] Programming depends on representation. p.84] In setting up a program, the programmer has in mind a systematic correspondence by which the contents of certain storage cells represent objects and relationships within the subject domain. p.84] Winograd and Flores also present typical representationalism of `arti cial intelligence'; such representationalism is based on rationalistic `problem-solving' as that is presented in the book's general discussion of the rationalistic tradition (chapter 2). The reader should note that this representationalism is false for neural nets.50 And other computer-programs are also excluded: \We will ignore special cases like the construction of a sequence of instructions whose purpose is simply to exercise the machine to test it for aws" p.84 (footnote)]. There are also students' programs which sort arrays of `random' numbers or traverse trees of letters; these programs don't represent much. Instead of making universal statements51 about all programs using representationalism, it's more accurate to say that most do and in particular typical programs for `arti cial intelligence' do. A nal point in section 7.1 is: \Representation is in the mind of the beholder" p.91]. This point echoes the Maturanaian distinction between the domain of mechanism and the `cognitive' domain (see above); representation occurs in the latter domain. As indicated above, the second half of section 7.3 is discussed next in this paper. The question here in Understanding is whether computers can represent or do more than what they're consciously programmed to represent or do. But actually, Winograd and Flores do not answer the question here: after mentioning Maturana's di erentiation of structural and `cognitive' domains, indicating that what occurs in the `cognitive domain' can be extensive, the authors defer the question to later sections of the book. As also indicated above, sections 8.1 and 8.2 are discussed with chapter 7 since these sections describe computers and typical `arti cial intelligence' like chapter 7 and unlike succeeding sections which critique `arti cial intelligence'. A rst point in section 8.1 is a reiteration of representationalism for computers: \A computer exhibits] patterns of activity that represent some external world" p.93]; as before, this statement is too universal, i.e. there are some exceptions. More signi cantly, section 8.1 contains discussion of various properties of computers which Winograd and Flores indicate have led some people to conjecture that computers could be intelligent. The properties are: \apparent autonomy" p.94], \complexity of purpose" p.94], \structural plasticity" p.94], and \unpredictability" p.95]. As a minor point in this section, Winograd and Flores

50 Representationalism could apply to neural nets if one considers the domain that of neurons. However, to do so would be to ignore the Maturanaian `cognitive domain'. See below re p.131 of Understanding. 51 All universalizations are bad.

38 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 write that a simulation of an organism's cells \. . . is of an order of complexity that makes it uninteresting as a predictive mechanism" p.95]; by \uninteresting" here, Winograd and Flores probably mean \impractical". Finally, as a subtle point here, Winograd and Flores implicitly contrast a computer-system with \organisms" p.95]; while such a distinction may be legitimate, it seems somewhat improper here since terms such as \computer" and \organism" are being de ned; the reader should avoid being improperly in uenced by such diction. In section 8.2, Winograd and Flores present the typical rationalistic approach to programming for `arti cial intelligence'. They mention initially: Chapter 2 described how arti cial intelligence developed out of attempts to formalize problem-solving behavior, under the in uence of Simon's work on rational decision making. p.95] Though this history re Simon and `arti cial intelligence' is reasonably accurate,52 the claim re chapter 2 is not: the indicated description of history is not in that chapter. Anyway, the steps presented for the programming are: \1. characterizing the task environment, . . . ] 2. designing a formal representation, . . . ] 3. embodying the representation in the computer system, and] 4. implementing a search procedure" p.96]. There are approaches to programming other than this representational one. (See parallel distributed processing etc.)

52 John McCarthy says that Newell's and Simon's work was more psychological while the original work that was called \arti cial intelligence" was more concerned with \getting machines to solve . . . ] problems" personal communication, December 1991]. See also Thinking Machines: The Evolution of Arti cial Intelligence, by Vernon Pratt.

How to Read Understanding / 39

Critique of `Arti cial Intelligence' (Sections 8.3 .)

As indicated above, sections 8.1 and 8.2 of Understanding belong with chapter 7, since all of that material comprises description gradually focusing onto `arti cial intelligence', unlike the criticism in the material of sections 8.3 .; so sections 8.1 and 8.2 are discussed with chapter 7, above. Winograd and Flores begin their critique of `arti cial intelligence', in section 8.3, repeating their mistake re Heidegger's concepts `present-at-hand' and `ready-to-hand': \Our ability to treat our experience as involving present-athand objects and properties is derived from a pre-conscious experience of them as ready-to-hand " p.97]. (See p.9 in this paper re how the statement is incorrect.) The authors continue: \The essence of our Being is the pre-re ective experience of being thrown in a situation of acting, without the opportunity or need to disengage and function as detached observers" p.97]. Certainly there is often no \need to disengage", but Winograd and Flores are wrong re there being \no opportunity": people often re ect while acting. But actually, these Heideggerian details are insigni cant: Winograd and Flores don't use these points re `readiness-to-hand' or `thrownness'. The reader may ignore this passage. A substantive point is the explanation of the term \blindness", which is related to interpretationism: \Our view is limited to what can be expressed in the terms we have adopted" p.97]. Incidentally, `blindness' depends on how language is accepted: people typically use much `common sense' (WF `pre-understanding') when understanding language, so a conceptualization with limited terms may nonetheless be interpreted broadly: consider the concept of `reading between the lines'.53 Presumably, computers accept their programs blindly. Next, Winograd and Flores repeat their universal claim (from section 7.1) re representationalism in programming: \The program is forever limited to working within the world determined by the programmer's explicit articulation of possible objects, properties, and relations among them" p.97]. The authors further note that even a limited set of multiple representations ultimately comprises only one (large) representation. p.98] As noted above, some programs (e.g. `neural net' programs) are non-representational. Winograd and Flores note that some programs handle problems well despite the programs' `blindness'. Such success is due to the problems' simplicity (of a certain kind), which Kurt VanLehn denotes \knowledge-lean"-ness \Problem Solving and Cognitive Skill Acquisition", in Foundations of Cognitive Science, edited by Posner]. But, as Winograd and Flores continue, there are broader problems | which a system should be able to handle to be considered intelligent | including that of identifying a problem as knowledge-lean and (truly) inventing a representation to solve it. Winograd and Flores include here: \The essence of intelligence is to act appropriately when there is no simple pre-de nition of the problem or the space of states in which to search for a solution" p.98]. This de nition of intelligence depends on de ning \appropriately" and further
53 Consider also:

Objectively, an] assertion, if true, \indicates" a fact; if false, it intends to \indicate" a fact but fails to do so. There are some assertions, namely those which assert present states of the speaker which he notices, in which what is \expressed" and what is \indicated" are identical, but in general these two are di erent. An Inquiry into Meaning & Truth, pp.214{15, by Bertrand Russell]

40 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 presents intelligence as a `truth-predicate' | an entity either has it or doesn't, with no possibility for intermediate values. The reader may contrast that definition with others such as the following: Intelligence is an attribute that an entity can have in various degrees; an entity is more intelligent if there are more situations in which it can achieve goals (such as getting food). Under this second de nition, mimicry or using a limited set of actions matched with a limited set of recognizable situations betrays limited intelligence. Winograd and Flores further indicate that programming common sense is di cult. This claim is true: in the terms of classic `arti cial intelligence', common sense entails much knowledge; consider the size and complexity of cyc, by Douglas Lenat et al. However, the only indication of explanation (justi cation) that Winograd and Flores give is: \This is an obvious consequence of Heidegger's realization that it is precisely in our `ordinary everydayness' that we are immersed in readiness-to-hand" p.98]. Winograd and Flores probably mean \thrownness" here rather than \readiness-to-hand": the latter concept applies to Heideggerian `equipment', not \we". More signi cantly, the claimed consequence is not \obvious". Perhaps the authors are appealing to their tenet of inarticulatability; it's not clear. Winograd and Flores conclude this passage saying: \We accuse people of lacking common sense precisely when some representation of the situation has blinded them to a space of potentially relevant actions" p.98]. But typical people (\we") don't believe that others have such representations, and common sense involves perception of possibilities or probabilities, not merely a protagonist's potential actions: a person lacks common sense when his or her perspective on a situation has blinded him or her to what should be a most probable event according to typical experience in this world. Next, Winograd and Flores discuss attempts to overcome the weaknesses of representationalism. As mentioned above, a set of multiple representations merely comprises one (large) representation. p.98] Winograd and Flores further say: The so-called creation of representations does not deal at all with the characterization of the environment (which is where the problem arises), but simply with the details of the formal structures by which it is represented. p.98] Winograd and Flores probably mean by this statement the following: Each system that supposedly creates new representations is actually only selecting from among a limited range of representations via a representational framework supplied by the system's programmer. (Representationalism is further discussed below, re p.103 .) The nal point here re arti cial systems is inarticulatability: \It is fruitless to search for a full formalization of the pre-understanding that underlies all thought and action" p.99]. As when this point was rst presented in part (see above), it is unjusti ed. A valid point is here, that people \do not need to have formalized representations in order to act" p.99] (though some researchers such as Simon unjusti ably presume that the representations are there | see the physical-symbol-system-hypothesis). However, the absence of such representations in humans does not su ce to make representations impossible (elsewhere). Switching their focus to human cognition, Winograd and Flores reiterate some general WF concepts (`thrownness', Maturanaian domains, `breakdown', `coupling'), indicating that human cognition works \. . . but is not based on representation" p.99]. An intriguing statement here is: \Heidegger demonstrates
I

How to Read Understanding / 41 that the essence of our intelligence is in our thrownness" p.99]; as reference, Winograd and Flores cite \earlier chapters". This point is not made in earlier chapters, but it may be inferable from Heidegger's general philosophy. Continuing, Winograd and Flores acknowledge that humans may be characterized as \programmed" p.99], but the authors say that such programming is di erent from computers' programming because computers are typically | Winograd and Flores imply `always' | \programmed explicitly with a chosen representation" p.99], whereas humans are not. Continuing in section 8.4 their exposition re the limitations of arti cial systems, Winograd and Flores mention systems which adjust parameters of representational features; since the features remain representational, so do the systems. pp. 100{101] Winograd and Flores also mention \combinatorial concept formation" p.101]; since this process involves mere selection (via \structural combinations of objects and properties" p.101]) within a perhaps large but still limited set of representational concepts provided by the programmer, systems based on this process remain representationally bound. Next, Winograd and Flores consider brain-style computation: Parameter adjustment or combinatorial search is applied, but at the level of individual elements connected in an overall web whose structure was not designed as a representation. It was hoped that a device designed on general principles (often by analogy with simple models of the nervous system) could learn a wide range of behaviors as a result of its structural coupling in a series of learning trials. This] approach to arti cial intelligence is theoretically possible but there has been essentially no success in getting it to work. . . . ] After a brief heyday in the 1950s and early 1960s, work of this sort was almost completely abandoned. p.102] While the \success" or progress of such work is debatable, it certainly is true that much research on brain-style computation is occurring now: see Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, edited by Rumelhart et al., published in 1986. To show that such work must fail anyway, Winograd and Flores write: The guiding image was that of a large number of essentially uniform neurons with widespread and essentially uniform potential for interconnections. Work over the years in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology has demonstrated that living organisms do not t this image. p.103] Many models used in the eld remain simple, but researchers have been using this recent neurophysiology as it has become available: consider part , \Biological Mechanisms", in (again) Parallel Distributed Processing. Anyway, as with inarticulatability elsewhere, Winograd and Flores have here a non sequitur : that simple models must fail because the working model (the human brain) is not simple. Researchers' hopes for brain-style computation are as empirical as those for classic `arti cial intelligence', i.e. to validate the hopes they must build a working system.54 Winograd and Flores next discuss arti cial evolution.55 An initial point is
V

54 But at least hopes re arti cial brain-style computation have some basis in reality since there exist working systems, namely brains. 55 Except perhaps for work such as John Koza's re \genetic algorithms", such research seems to have been abandoned (postponed?). Or perhaps, from an abstract perspective, computers

42 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 that people know little about \the mechanisms of change" p.103], where these mechanisms are supposed to involve \molecular genetics" p.103]. But genetics probably isn't signi cant in computer-programming. A more signi cant point is that evolution proceeds in parallel on many individuals | all the members of a species | so replicating it is computationally intensive, and evolutionary changes must be relevant to survival, which (relevance) is di cult to program. Addressing what may be another approach to arti cial systems, Winograd and Flores write: It has been argued that the representation relation between a computer and the world its structures describe will be di erent when we can build robots with visual, tactile, and other sensors and motor e ectors operating in the physical domain. p.104] As Winograd and Flores note, the presence of such paraphernalia is irrelevant; the signi cant factor is whether the underlying system is representational. But this entire passage may be spurious: no reference is given for who \argued" as described. A minor point here involves the sentence: \The relevant properties and their representation are xed by the design of the equipment" p.104]; apparently, the authors include the programmed representation as part of the designed equipment. (See also above re representationalism in section 8.3 .) This section concludes with: The possibilities for computers whose physical structure evolves . . . ] through structural coupling . . . ] are even more remote than those of programming by evolutionary change. The reader may interpret this statement as saying that it is impossible (\more remote" than what has been described as impossible) to construct arti cial organisms which then physically evolve as do natural organisms. \Extremely di cult"56 seems more accurate than \impossible". In section 8.5, Winograd and Flores apply their perspective re (WF) language to the question, \Can computers be intelligent?" p.105]: If the question were asked seriously, neither the logical possibility nor the precise meaning of words] would be the issue at hand. The questioner would be asking for some reason in some background of understanding and purpose, and the appropriate answer (just like the appropriate answer to \Is there water in the refrigerator?") would have to be relevant to that background. p.105] Since the background must be determined, Winograd and Flores state it: \The background for serious questions about computer intelligence is the development of computer systems and their use in human contexts" p.105]. This anthropocentric view is unjusti ed, but within the general context57 of the WF conceptual framework wherein all that humans can consider is fundamentally determined by their human interpretations or pre-understanding(s), this statement indicates: the question must be re-phrased as, \Can humans consider computers intelligent?". This interpretation ts Winograd's and Flores's (further) discussion:
and their programs are evolving; consider: \A system of natural selection applies | those systems that work ultimately survive" Understanding, p.174]. 56 How di cult? Consider the possibility of genetically altering extant creatures for the convenience of humans. But the discussion here is supposed to focus on computers. 57 `background'

How to Read Understanding / 43 In uttering a sentence containing mental terms (`intelligent,' `perceive,' `learn'), we are adopting an orientation towards the thing referred to by the subject of the sentence. p.105] Winograd and Flores attempt to distinguish this \orientation" from Dennett's \intentional stance" p.106]: Dennett . . . ] argues that in taking an intentional stance toward computers, all one is claiming is that \on occasion, a purely physical system can be so complex, and yet so organized, that we nd it convenient, explanatory, pragmatically necessary for prediction, to treat it as if it has beliefs and desires and was rational." But treating a system as though it were rational (in the formalized sense of rationality) is very di erent from treating it as though it had beliefs and desires, and this is a signi cant confusion. p.106] Winograd and Flores construe \rational" here overly narrowly | \in the formalized sense of rationality". They also imply that someone confuses rationality with beliefs and desires. Dennett doesn't do so here; the authors seem to be erecting another `straw man'. Though they don't clearly say so, Winograd and Flores reject Dennett's view that \intelligent" is merely a convenient adjective; the authors indicate that certain attributes are necessary for intelligence. Though they thus seem to be abandoning their preference for `orientation' rather than de nition, actually they consider it implicit. For example, one attribute is autonomy, which they qualify, saying: The issue is not whether it really is autonomous | the question of free will has been debated for centuries. . . . ] Rather, in using mental terms we commit ourselves to an orientation towards the term's object] as an autonomous agent. p.105] Elsewhere, Winograd and Flores grant that a computer-program can have \apparent autonomy" p.94]. A human attribute that Winograd and Flores deny to computer-programs is responsibility, or commitment: An essential part of being human is the ability to enter into commitments and to be responsible for the courses of action that they anticipate. A computer can never enter into a commitment, and can never enter as a participant into the domain of human discourse. p.106] Winograd and Flores cite \earlier chapters" here, but as described above re such, the claim re commitment is not justi ed there. (See also below, re chapter 9.)

44 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

Arti cially Processing Language (Chapter 9)

In chapter 9, Winograd and Flores both describe and critique attempts to have computer-programs `understand' or otherwise (arti cially) process language. The earliest attempts are simply mentioned in passing at the beginning of the rst section of chapter 9: \the failure of the . . . ] machine translation projects" p.107]. Next came the following sort of system: Each program worked in some very limited domain (such as baseball scores, family trees, or algebra word problems) within which it was possible to set up formal representation structures corresponding to the meanings of sentences. These structures could be used in a systematic reasoning process as a partial simulation of language comprehension. p.108] Winograd and Flores describe Winograd's 1973 shrdlu system as such a primitive representational computer-program. In the second section of chapter 9, Winograd and Flores reiterate their point, from part , that: Meaning always derives from an interpretation that is rooted in a situation: . . . relativity to situation and opportunity constitutes the very essence of speaking. For no statement simply has an unambiguous meaning based on its linguistic and logical construction, as such, but on the contrary, each is motivated. A question is behind each statement that rst gives it its meaning. | Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics (1976), pp. 88{89. Understanding, pp. 111-12] Winograd and Flores give examples such as \water" (as discussed in chapter 5), \bachelor"58, and | to \leave philosophical examples and look at the words appearing in everyday language, . . . ] the sentence `The regime's corruption provoked a crisis of con dence in the government' " p.113]. Actually, \everyday language" would probably be better exempli ed by, say, a businesscommunication or something a mother says to her child.59 Winograd and Flores contrast their perspective involving `background' with the `context-independence' which they present, at the beginning of this second section of chapter 9, as permeating \the rationalistic approach to meaning" p.111]. But they have a `straw man' here: no one promotes contextindependence. (See also above, re similar discussion in chapter 2.) Incidentally,
I

58 Winograd and Flores note: \For a discussion of examples like this, see Fillmore, `An alternative to checklist theories of meaning' (1975)" p.112 (footnote)]. What Charles Fillmore says (there) re \bachelor" is: According to the prototype theory of meaning, these concepts are de ned in the context of a simple world in which men typically marry around a certain age, they marry once, they marry exclusively, and they stay married until one partner dies. Men who are unmarried at the time they could be married are called bachelors. as cited] 59 (Well, maybe political language is more typical if one is \a cabinet minister in the government of Chile" back cover of Understanding].)

How to Read Understanding / 45 \context-independence" should be almost antithetic to language: language is useful not because it's independent of context but because it's applicable in many contexts. Winograd and Flores discuss recent work re `pragmatics' or `discourse' | which attempts to address issues of context | in the last part of this section. As criticism here, Winograd and Flores say only: \the overall feeling is of undirected and untested speculation" p.114]. Such unspeci c criticism is unconvincing. In the third section of chapter 9, Winograd and Flores discuss `frames': \a frame . . . ] is a remembered framework to be adapted to t reality by changing details as necessary" p.115].60 Later in the section, the authors also discuss \resource-limited processing" p.117]; they note that this concept resembles Maturana's structural determinism. A point early in this section is: \The widespread enthusiasm about frames was a response to a shared but unarticulated awareness of the inadequacies of the problem-solving approach" p.116]. This psycho-historically analytic claim is unjusti ed. As criticism of frames, Winograd and Flores note that they are representational: \the characterization of the task environment requires the programmer] to distinguish the relevant objects and properties before doing any representation" p.116]. Then, re implementation, some parts of a frame must be invariant for matching, and, \Here, if we look at the literature on frame systems, we nd a mixture of hand waving and silence" p.117]; Winograd and Flores mention a few di culties re such implementation, including inconsistency and overgeneralization. Finally, Winograd and Flores conclude this section with further substantive criticisms: Either the structures are written with a few speci c examples in mind and work well only for those examples and minor variations on them, or they do not make any essential use of the frame ideas (adopting only a frame-like notation) and are equivalent to more traditional programs. Those speci c] examples cannot be extended in any obvious way. . . . ] Furthermore, . . . ] a system containing frames . . . ] still does not escape the problems of blindness described in Chapter 8. p.118] To go beyond considerations of speci c extant research, Winograd and Flores apply their (WF) perspective to the question of whether computers can understand language, in the fourth section of chapter 9. After listing some examples of various arti cial systems that process language, the authors write: The appropriateness of the response is relative to a background of other things that might be said. In the given] case s], this range is too limited to warrant being called understanding. . . . ] As we move up in complexity . . . ], the range of patterns grows larger and . . . ] it may be di cult for a person to recognize the program's limitations. Nonetheless, there is] a permanent structure of blindness. p.121] After giving examples of programs (such as Joseph Weizenbaum's doctor and Wendy Lehnert's boris) demonstrating such characteristics, Winograd and Flores mention: . . . the theory of language presented in chapter 5. We argued there that the essence of language as a human activity lies not in its ability
60 Incidentally, Winograd (with Bobrow) worked on frames; see krl (1977).

46 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 to re ect the world, but in its characteristic of creating commitment. p.123] Thus, considering \other things that might be said" and \commitment", the process of `understanding' requires (1) responding appropriately to lots of speech and (2) commitment (to dialogue at misunderstanding (`breakdown')). Winograd and Flores further indicate that this latter commitment must be extensive: the rudimentary self-explanatory features of teiresias are insu cient, being representational. pp. 123{24] Winograd and Flores say that a computer cannot make such commitments: \It is committed to nothing" p.123]. Indeed, they consider attribution of such responsibility or commitment \dangerous" p.123]; but they do not explain the danger (see also below re p.153). Regarding the requirement that a system must respond appropriately to much speech for understanding to occur, such a requirement severely restricts the meaning of \understanding". There are degrees of understanding, as with young children or dogs (of which both types of entity exhibit responsibility, incidentally). Regarding the other requirement, commitment, it is not justi ed as the basis for language (see above re chapter 5), and further Winograd and Flores nowhere show that computers can't make commitments | they merely state the claim occasionally. Winograd and Flores conclude this section with a few minor points, for example that a computer can serve as a medium for conveying commitments between people. This happens to be true, just as a human messenger (or courier) can serve as a medium for conveying commitments between people. More signi cant is the following: What is important is that people using certain] system s] recognize that] the responses re ect a particular representation that was created by some person or group of people, and embodies a blindness. p.124]

How to Read Understanding / 47

Prospects for `Arti cial Intelligence' (Chapter 10)

In chapter 10, titled \Current directions in arti cial intelligence" p.125], Winograd and Flores discuss and critique how the eld of `arti cial intelligence' is proceeding. As initial material, they quote some fantasies re the eld. They say that achieving far-fetched goals such as a system that gives philosophical advice is \obviously" p.126] unfeasible (though the many preceding pages indicate that this unfeasibility is not obvious, requiring some e ort to be proven).61 The rst section of chapter 10 begins as follows: Until the mid-1970s arti cial intelligence researchers generally believed they could work simultaneously towards two goals: extending the capabilities of computers, and moving towards an understanding of human intelligence. Work was] aimed towards an ultimate synthesis. In the last few years, this view has been questioned. There is a tacit acceptance of the point we have made in this book | that the techniques of current AI are not adequate for an understanding of human thought and language. p.126] Later, Winograd and Flores repeat this idea of a general \acceptance that the available techniques are too limited to form the basis for a broad theory" p.130]. (But again, with the notable exception of Simon, there's no evidence that anyone has considered symbolicism su cient as a foundation for psychology.) Focusing on disciplines within `arti cial intelligence', Winograd and Flores discuss robotics, saying: \The limitations of representation and programming based on a formal characterization of properties and actions are just as strong in dealing with physical robots" p.128]. Implicit in the next passage, re \natural language `front ends' " p.129], is the point that the underlying systems are representational; but more explicitly here, Winograd and Flores discuss the issue of practicality: Once the advantage of exibility has been removed, it is not clear that the additional costs of natural language (verbosity, redundancy, ambiguity, etc.) are worth paying in place of a more streamlined formal system. p.129] Winograd and Flores include \cognitive modelling" p.130] under the rubric of `arti cial intelligence'. Discussing cognitive modeling, the authors' rst point is: \As mentioned above, current work is less ambitious in scope than were the earlier attempts" p.130]. This statement implies that psychologists today are less inclined to understand human behavior than were earlier psychologists. (Incidentally, this point is not \mentioned above"; there's a point re \a clear split between the `knowledge engineers' . . . ] and the `mind-modellers' " p.126], but nothing re psychologists losing ambition.) Next, Winograd and Flores include, with cognitive science, \ `connectionist' approaches, such as the `society of minds' (Minsky, `The society theory of thinking,' 1979)" p.130]. But Minsky's work was not intended as psychology; it is somewhat typical `arti cial intelligence' with some concurrency | basically general distributed processing | and it di ers signi cantly from neural networks or what is typically considered `connectionist'. The `connectionist' model involves a universal network and many simple atomic units, whereas Minsky's model involves a high-level network with
61 How di cult might it be to construct a system that would be respected more than current popular sources of advice such as fortune-cookies and astrology-charts?

48 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 mid-level structures which could have independent | including non-network | architectures. Mentioning \the paucity of computational mechanisms" p.130], Winograd and Flores indicate that researchers' mechanisms may be insu cient to achieve their goals. The authors may be referring only to work such as Minsky's, but nonetheless: the human brain works, so whatever its mechanisms are, they must be su cient; and there are researchers investigating them. Finally, in this section, Winograd and Flores address the research on true brain-style computation, saying: Detailed theories may be developed that in some way model the functioning of nervous systems and the modi cation of their structure over time. There is much to be discovered about how our nervous systems really work, but AI theories and neurophysiological theories are in di erent domains. Detailed theories of neurological mechanisms will not be the basis for answering the general questions about intelligence and understanding that have been raised in this book any more than detailed theories of transistor electronics would aid in understanding the complexities of computer software. p.131] Here, Winograd and Flores unfairly narrowly construe the goals of brain-style computationalists as restricted only to understanding neurons; actually, these researchers explicitly have broader goals: \How . . . ] are we to understand the capabilities of human thought?" Preface to Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, edited by Rumelhart et al., 1986]. Winograd and Flores o er no justi cation for the claim that \AI theories and neurophysiological theories are in di erent domains." Conceivably, they mean that `arti cial intelligence' entails arti cial systems and neurophysiology's subject is natural ones, but obviously an arti cial working model of a human brain would be an arti cial system, so to the extent that psychologists attempt to construct such models, the domains of `arti cial intelligence' and psychology do overlap. Incidentally, this passage is contradicted by the earlier chapter re Maturanaian concepts (theories) of the nervous system and biology generally. Perhaps the reader should ignore this passage. Winograd and Flores describe `expert systems' in the second section of chapter 10, mentioning \characteristics of problems that are suitable" p.131] for such systems. The authors also indicate that there are two caveats re the use of such systems, but these two caveats seem to actually be only one. The rst given is: \Calling a program an `expert' is misleading in exactly the same way as calling it `intelligent' or saying it `understands' " p.132]. Considering previous discussion re \intelligent" and \understands", this rst caveat must involve the WF `blindness' or limitations of the system. Winograd and Flores continue: \The second problem with creating expert systems is the di culty in understanding and conveying a sense of the limitations of a particular program and of the approach in general" p.132]; \blindness" p.133] is mentioned. Incidentally, here, the authors mention \danger" re these caveats, but as above p.123] they do not explain the danger (see also re p.153). Also, this passage includes: In order to produce a set of rules for a medical `expert' system, it is rst necessary to pre-select the relevant factors and thereby cut out the role of the background. p.133] As usual, the WF postulate of inarticulatability of background remains unjusti ed.

How to Read Understanding / 49 In the third section of chapter 10, Winograd and Flores focus on the \ fth generation" p.133] computer-project of Japan. The authors describe its genesis, other nations' responses, and the stated general goals of the project. Winograd and Flores criticize these goals' expectations of understanding and intelligence, as in previous chapters re `arti cial intelligence' generally. Then, the authors consider the project's sub-tasks, noting that these actually involve computerscience generally, e.g. including parallel processing and hardware-design. Winograd and Flores express skepticism that the sub-tasks will achieve the general goals, using language such as: \the trap in assuming" p.137], \idle dream" p.137], \an error in assuming" p.137], \panacea" p.138], and: \It is not obvious that the particular approach currently envisioned by the project is the best one" p.138]. They further say: \A system that provides a limited imitation of human facilities will intrude with apparently irregular and incomprehensible breakdowns" p.137], without justifying this statement. Indeed, the authors make quite speculative remarks; two re \the key to design" p.137] and \we can create tools . . . " p.137] should be discussed in part of Understanding, but a pathognomonical passage is: As the project proceeds, current arti cial intelligence techniques will nd their way into a variety of niches within the project, but will not be central to its overall goal of making the machine more accessible. More ambitious AI goals such as general-purpose machine translation and real natural-language understanding will be dropped. pp. 137{38] Such prognostication is unjusti ed. Anyway, considering human determination and exibility, it's more probable that people would switch techniques (i.e. substitute something for traditional `arti cial intelligence') rather than drop goals.62 Winograd and Flores conclude this section with more speculative remarks which | contrary to their use of \then" | don't follow even from their skeptical remarks: \The grandiose goals, then, will not be met" p.138]. Though they cite their critique of the rationalistic tradition, their next comment doesn't follow from that, either: \In the long run, the ambitions for truly intelligent computer systems, as re ected in this project and others like it around the world, will not be a major factor in technological development" pp. 138{39]. This statement re history of science is not justi ed in the book.
III

62 Unless funding ceases. Actually, probably almost always someone tries to continue anyway.

50 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

Concluding Remarks re Part

II

II

The main thesis of part of Understanding is that humans should never consider computer-programs or computers running computer-programs intelligent or able to understand, because: computer-programs rely on representations and are therefore severely limited according to the claim of inarticulatability of background; arti cial systems such as neural nets which are created in attempts to avoid representations don't work; and anyway no computer-system can participate in commitments though such are foundational for intelligence and understanding. As indicated in the above, this thesis is unjusti ed because: the claim of inarticulatability is unjusti ed; researchers seem to be progressing with non-representational arti cial behavior; the idea that intelligence and understanding require commitment is unjusti ed; and computer-systems' incapability for commitment is unjusti ed. The thesis is further false, from the following perspective: Because the language is convenient | as indicated by Dennett (see above or p.106 of Understanding) | people should feel free to apply terms such as \understand" to computer-systems; however, in accord with Winograd and Flores, people should be aware of the limitations of the computer-systems that they use | perhaps particularly if the people use those terms | to avoid confusion. Such diction depends on the idea that there are degrees of understanding and intelligence. Re the limitations on the potential for comprehensive arti cial behavior, the research-problem is essentially empirical, decidable almost exclusively by the demonstration of a working system | except that practicality may a ect the endeavor: systems such as cyc seem to grow unwieldy as researchers attempt to make them comprehensive, implying that Winograd's and Flores's claim of inarticulatability may be true; perhaps a theorem, say re the Kolmogorov complexity of the world, would show that comprehensive representational systems are unfeasible | just as a theorem showed that comprehensive systems based on perceptrons are unfeasible. Even then, there remain possibilities for non-representational systems | and opportunities, as mentioned by Winograd and Flores, for representational systems to operate in limited \systematic domains" p.131]. In contrast to the broadmindedness here re issues such as language involving convenience, there is a certain absolutism in Winograd's and Flores's presentation: they mention \real understanding" p.129] and \truly intelligent . . . " p.139], and they do not much discuss approximations to full human capabilities as in children, idiot-savants, or animals. But there are degrees of almost everything, and the system that reports the time when precisely asked is merely demonstrating what may be the most primitive sort of understanding.

How to Read Understanding / 51

Design (Part )
III

In part of Understanding, Winograd and Flores discuss what can't or shouldn't be done with computers. In part , they consider: `What can people do with computers?', i.e. the question of `design'.
II III

Coordination of O ce-Work (Chapter 11)

Winograd and Flores begin chapter 11 saying: We are concerned with the design of new computer-based tools, and this leads us to asking what people do in a domain of linguistic action. As our primary example we consider what people do in their work, taking the o ce as the prototypical workplace. The issues of commitment and coordinated action that are highlighted in that setting are vital to all kinds of work situations and to `home life' as well. p.143] The authors state here their focusing their discussion on coordination of o cework. Though they use language such as \this leads . . . ] to" and \prototypical", this focus of theirs is almost arbitrary: they do not justify the implicit notion that a computer is only a linguistic tool, and they do not indicate why o ces are prototypical though they've existed for probably at most a few thousand years and though o ces seem less typical worldwide than factories, other workplaces, and indeed general human life. Nonetheless, the authors have chosen this focus, and their discussion here may generalize, which they imply that they intend. As a further elaboration of their focus, they mention \management" p.143], indicating that this topic is only a rst step in their consideration of general coordination. They further propose: We will argue that . . . ] the domain of speech acts and conversation | the one in which terms like `reminding,' `requesting,' and `agreeing' are relevant | . . . ] is the most fruitful domain for understanding and facilitating management. p.144] One theme in chapter 11 is the rejection of the concept of management as `decision-making', but this theme is somewhat scattered: it is discussed primarily in sections 11.1 and 11.4. Section 11.2 presents an alternative to `decision-making'. Section 11.3 introduces WF `commitment' to the discussion in this chapter and naturally leads into section 11.5, where a coordinationsystem based on WF commitment is presented. In this paper, the sections are discussed in the order: 11.1, 11.2, 11.4, 11.3, 11.5. In section 11.1, Winograd and Flores discuss how management isn't simply `decision-making'. They begin by reviewing the presentation of rationalistic `decision-making' of chapter 2. They then mention bugs in this perspective such as the vagueness of what a problem is or how problem-spaces are created. The authors indicate that `thrownness' negates the occurrence of rationalistic problem-solving. They also cite studies which indicate that the rationalistic model of decision-making simply doesn't t what people actually do. As Winograd and Flores present in section 11.2, Instead of talking about `decisions' or `problems' we can talk of `situations of irresolution,' in which we sense con ict about an answer to the question \What needs to be done?" p.147]

52 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 The \mood of irresolution" p.147] somehow arises, \characteristically by some claim" p.147]. The alternatives considered depend on the actors' \pre-orientation within a background" p.149], but these alternatives tend not to be clearly delineated and certainly don't form a discretized space. The authors mention the variability of the alternatives, between people or as time passes. The authors also note: We call the process of going from irresolution to resolution `deliberation.' The principal characteristic of deliberation is that it is a kind of conversation (in which one or more actors may participate) guided by questions concerning how actions should be directed. p.149] In section 11.4, Winograd and Flores discuss \decision support systems" p.152], computer-systems that have been proposed to aid the process of management though it is not `decision-making': For structured tasks it is often possible to create a set of rules and have computers apply them to the situation. For unstructured tasks such rules cannot be formulated. However, there is an in-between area of `semi-structured' tasks with some degree of recurrence but not so much that one can fully specify the relevant rules. Keen and Scott-Morton see this as the relevant area for computer aid to human decision making. p.153] Winograd and Flores describe many caveats re such computer-support for `decisions'. Incidentally, they use \danger" p.153] here, as they do elsewhere (e.g. p.132, p.179), but only here is it apparent that they mean the less bombastic \caveat". One of the caveats here is: \Once a computer system is installed, it is di cult to avoid the assumption that the things it can deal with are the most relevant things for the manager's concern" pp.153{54]. This speculation re computers' popularity is unjusti ed and seems implausible. In discussing another caveat, Winograd and Flores say: \Trained professionals in computer technology tend to place high values on e ciency and predictability, and to devalue the need for human discretion and innovation" p.154]. This blanket condemnation of computer-professionals may be true, but Winograd and Flores do not justify it. The authors give an example where automation seems to have precipitated \breakdowns" p.154], but they give no reference such as the location or dates of the events, and the `breakdowns' are not explained. A later caveat is \obscuring responsibility" p.155]; indeed, determination of responsibility becomes di cult with computers, but see above re part . The conclusion following all these caveats of section 11.4 is in section 11.5; it is: \The domain of `decision support' | dealing with alternatives, valuations, and choice | is not the most promising domain in which to build computer tools for managing" p.157]. With decision-theory debunked in sections 11.1, 11.2, and 11.4, in section 11.3 Winograd and Flores continue more with how management and work do proceed. They write: If we look carefully at the process of resolution described above, we see that the key elements are the conversation among the a ected parties and the commitment to action that results from reaching resolution. p.151] Citing a study, Winograd and Flores continue:
II

How to Read Understanding / 53 We may say that managers engage in conversations in which they create, take care of, and initiate new commitments within an organization. The word `management' conveys the sense of active concern with action, and especially with the securing of e ective cooperative action. p.151] And managers also determine what actions and commitments may be considered, . . . participat ing] in `conversations for possibilities' that open new backgrounds for the conversations for action. p.151] The signi cance of \commitment" in this domain is clear; perhaps their focusing on this domain biased the authors to emphasize it as they do throughout the book (see above). In section 11.5, Winograd and Flores describe how their \theory of management and conversation" p.157] may be used in a particular computer-system to facilitate the processes described by the theory. They begin by \reviewing the basic points of the theory" p.157]. Apparently to justify using their system, they then say: \the complexity of organizations has gone beyond the point where it can be controlled without appropriate tools" p.158], but they do not justify their claim. They don't even need this extreme view: they need merely propose that such a system could be useful. Beginning to describe the system, they note that it is designed for the community, not the individual (as with other systems), since \collective work" p.158] is foundational in the theory. Then, they describe the operations available in the system. Basically, the system helps people communicate commitments and maintain them. Included in this discussion are points re computers' limitations as discussed above (re part ), but this text further contains some unclear diction: Organizations exist as networks of directives and commissives. p.157] Networks of recurrent conversations are . . . ] embodied as intercommunicating o ces. p.158] A person working within an organization is always concerned with questions such as, \What is missing?" p.158] The force of a speech act comes from concerned listening. p.159] The network is observed in the space generated by the structure of conversation. p.160] The reader may nd rephrasings such as the following more understandable: An organization's existence depends on the commitments | via directives and commissives | of its members. O ces are created to handle recurrent conversations. The network is understood as operating or existing in the domain of conversations. The authors conclude this section indicating the speci city of the system: It] is valuable in a wide variety of everyday communications within organizations, but it is not a universal communicating device, equally applicable to all situations. . . . ] A coordination system deals with one dimension of language structure | one that is systematic and crucial for the coordination of action, but that is part of the larger and ultimately open-ended domain of interpretation. pp.161{62]
II

54 / Report No. CSLI{92{162 Thus, Winograd and Flores avoid making fantastic claims such as those of some people re `arti cial intelligence' (see above or p.128 of Understanding). However, they do propose some generalizability of their work: People's conscious knowledge of their participation in the network of commitment can be reinforced and developed, improving their capacity to act in the domain of language. p.162] Since their theory of commitment remains weak (see above re chapter 5), such generalizability seems doubtful. Further, Winograd and Flores don't indicate why making people conscious of commitment would be good; perhaps they intend to appeal to mechanisms of self-improvement via self-awareness as in Freudian psychoanalysis.

How to Read Understanding / 55

All Uses of Computers (Chapter 12)

In chapter 12, Winograd and Flores consider the process of design, broadly construed. They begin, noting: Ontological . . . ] designing . . . ] grow s] out of our already-existent ways of being in the world. . . . ] Through the emergence of new tools, we come to a changing awareness of human nature and human action which in turn leads to new technological development. p.163] In the rst section of chapter 12, the authors review some aspects of their conceptual framework that are particularly relevant to design: \readiness-to-hand" p.164], \breakdown" p.165], and \the blindness created by design" p.166]. Then, in the second section of this chapter, they apply their perspective | developed throughout the book | to a particular situation; in the discussion, the authors make the following points re design: There are no clear problems to be solved: Action needs to be taken in a situation of irresolution. p.167] A business (like any organization) is constituted as a network of recurrent conversations. p.168] Conversations are linked in regular patterns of triggering and breakdown. p.168] In creating tools we are designing new conversations and connections. p.169] Design includes the generation of new possibilities. p.170] Domains are generated by the space of potential breakdown of action. p.170] Breakdown is an interpretation | everything exists as interpretation within a background. p.171] Domains of anticipation are incomplete. p.172] Computers are a tool sic] for conducting the network of conversations. p.172] Innovations have their own domains of breakdown. p.173] Design is always already happening. p.173] In the third section of chapter 12, Winograd and Flores discuss how rationalistic computer-systems can be useful in systematic domains. Lastly, in the fourth section of this chapter, the authors reiterate the idea that human being determines while being a ected by design, e.g. the design of computers and the di usion of the WF perspective (the authors speak of training people in \communication for action" p.179]).

56 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

Concluding Remarks
Regarding this paper's initial (in the introduction) statements re the purposes of Understanding Computers and Cognition (A New Foundation for Design), the book does introduce a somewhat new orientation, it does critique `arti cial intelligence' and related disciplines, and it does discuss design. Some notable points include: various concepts such as interpretationism, thrownness, domains of explanation, and coordination; interpretationism's consequences of limitations in computer-science; and a broad understanding of design. An ancillary purpose of the book is to induce the reader to adopt the WF orientation, so a question for the reader is: \Did I adopt it?". The book has many persuasive elements, but completely accepting Understanding is di cult because of its aws: incomplete explanations (or justi cations) and insu cient treatment of some work (such as non-representational `arti cial intelligence').63 A nal consideration involves reviews of Understanding Computers and Cognition.64 Winograd and Flores write, re a particular team of reviewers: Fundamental concerns are touched, and although their assessments are primarily negative, the sense of confusion (and frustration) shows that the book has evoked serious concern. AIJ 2/87 p.258] The authors imply that such reaction is su cient for their purposes: Our goal is to evoke openness to a new discourse that will guide the technology of the future. AIJ 2/87 p.257] Though the mentioned review and the others contain signi cant criticisms of Understanding, Winograd and Flores dismiss all of them similarly, except to note the reviewers' misunderstandings of the book (there are several misunderstandings) and to address one criticism involving the book's lack of clarity re the authors' coordination-system. Presumably, Winograd and Flores could dismiss this paper as with the (other) reviews. This condescending attitude that sets the authors above the reviews and above argumentation is questionable. The authors use in the book phrases such as \we argue" and \we show" (e.g. both on p.143); and them's ghtin' words! Nonetheless, Winograd and Flores indicate a wish to avoid argumentation in the book. In passing, as on pages 173 and 174, as well as in the preface or introduction, they have statements such as: Our book aims to move outside of the conventional discourse | to stimulate new thinking about computer design, not to set up and defend a position (or what Vellino calls a \conceptual scheme".) AIJ 2/87 p.253] But consider the book. It describes limits for `arti cial intelligence' (and other elds of work) indicating that many researchers' careers are worthless. And the authors are a former cabinet-minister in a national government and a former president of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility who himself has
63 Yet, to see the in uence of Understanding, consider the terminology and the ideas used in the Presidential Address of the American Association for Arti cial Intelligence (AAAI), 1990, titled: \Dimensions of Interaction | a Shift of Perspective in Arti cial Intelligence", by Daniel G. Bobrow AI Magazine, Fall 1991]. Re in uence beyond the professional community, consider also the article titled: \The future of software design is philosophy", by Michael Schrage, in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle of November 10, 1991 . 64 See AIJ 2/87 pp. 213{261; the reviews (including Winograd's and Flores's response to the reviews) are recommended to the reader.

How to Read Understanding / 57 gained much authority in the aforementioned eld; these authors demonstrate respect. Consequently, this book presents a provocative statement with a loud voice. Now, the authors don't want to debate their work? Such unobligingness resembles expecting not to need to justify having yelled \Fire!" in a crowded theater. Winograd and Flores should obey their own dictum: \When one utters a statement, one is committed to provide some kind of `grounding' " Understanding p.67]. In lieu of that, one can only read the literature as it exists.

58 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

Bibliography
Blitz Mark: Heidegger's \Being and Time", 1981, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. Bobrow Daniel G.: \Dimensions of Interaction | a Shift of Perspective in Arti cial Intelligence" (Presidential Address of the American Association for Arti cial Intelligence (AAAI), 1990), in AI Magazine #12.3, 1991.Fall, pp. 64{80. Brooks Rodney A.: \Intelligence without Representation", 1991, Arti cial Intelligence (AIJ ), Vol. 47, pp. 139{159. Clancey William J.: review of Understanding Computers and Cognition, in Arti cial Intelligence (AIJ ) #31.2, 1987.February, pp. 232{250. Cussins Adrian: \The Connectionist Construction of Concepts", in The Philosophy of Arti cial Intelligence, edited by Margaret Boden, 1990, in the series \The Oxford Readings in Philosophy", Oxford University Press, Oxford England. Genesereth Michael R. and Nilsson Nils J.: Logical Foundations of Arti cial Intelligence, 1987, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., Los Altos California. Haugeland John (editor): Mind Design, 1981, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. Heidegger Martin: Being and Time, translated from the German Sein und Zeit by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, 1962, Harper & Row Publishers Inc., New York 16, N.Y. Page-references marked `H' follow the pagination of German editions. Hofstadter Douglas R.: Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, 1979, Random House, New York. Hofstadter Douglas R.: \Waking Up from the Boolean Dream, or, Subcognition as Computation", in Metamagical Themas, originally appearing in Scienti c American, July 1982. Kagan Jerome: Change and Continuity in Infancy, 1971, J. Wiley, New York. Kuhn Thomas S.: The Structure of Scienti c Revolutions (2nd edition), 1970, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Konner Melvin: The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit, 1982, Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York. MacCormac Earl R.: Metaphor and myth in science and religion, 1976, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina. Minsky Marvin and Papert Seymour: Perceptrons, 1969, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. Mowat Farley: Never Cry Wolf, 1963, Little Brown and Co., Boston. Mussen Paul H., Conger John J., and Kagan Jerome: Child Development and Personality (Fifth Edition), 1979, Harper & Row, New York. Pirsig Robert M.: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; an Inquiry into Values, 1974, Morrow, New York. Posner Michael I. (editor): Foundations of Cognitive Science, 1989, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. Pratt Vernon: Thinking Machines: The Evolution of Arti cial Intelligence, 1987, Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford UK.

How to Read Understanding / 59 Rumelhart David E. and McClelland James L. and the PDP Research Group, Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, 1986, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. Russell Bertrand: An Inquiry into Meaning & Truth, 1940, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., New York. Schrage Michael: \The future of software design is philosophy", in the series (i.e. `column') \Innovation", on the page titled \Computers & Technology", p. E-14, in San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, 1991.November.10, c 1991, Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Schumacher E.F.: Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, 1973, Harper & Row Publishers Inc., New York, N.Y. Simon Herbert A.: The Sciences of the Arti cial (Second Edition), 1981, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. Ste k Mark J. and Bobrow Daniel G.: review of Understanding Computers and Cognition, in Arti cial Intelligence (AIJ ) #31.2, 1987.February, pp. 220{226. Suchman Lucy A.: review of Understanding Computers and Cognition, in Arti cial Intelligence (AIJ ) #31.2, 1987.February, pp. 227{232. Vellino Andre: review of Understanding Computers and Cognition, in Arti cial Intelligence (AIJ ) #31.2, 1987.February, pp. 213{220. West David M. and Travis Larry E.: \From Society to Landscape: Alternative Metaphors for Arti cial Intelligence", in AI Magazine #12.2, 1991.Summer . Winograd Terry and Flores Fernando: Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design, 1986, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Inc., Menlo Park California. Winograd Terry and Flores Fernando: response to reviews of Understanding Computers and Cognition, in Arti cial Intelligence (AIJ ) #31.2, 1987.February, pp. 250{261.

60 / Report No. CSLI{92{162

Index

argumentation: see justi cation arti cial behavior: 35 (footnote) background: 6 blindness: 31, 39 brain-style computation: 41 breakdown: 8{9, 22, 26, 29 cognitive domain: 13{15 commitment: 19, 20, 43, 46, 53 common sense: 40 context: 18{19, 34 inarticulatable: 19 convenience: 11, 22, 26, 43, 50 coordination-system: 53{54 coupling, structural: 12 danger: 46, 48, 52 Dennett: 43, 50 domain, cognitive: 13{15 systematic: see systematic domain existence: 6 homeostasis: 12 inarticulatability: 6{7, 40 intelligence: 40, 42 interpretationism: 9, 16 justi cation: 56{57 order in the book: 3, 36, 51 physical-symbol-system-hypothesis: 27 (footnote) pre-understanding: 6 present-at-hand: 8 ready-to-hand: 8 recurrence: 22 representation: 7, 14 representationalism: 37, 39 responsibility: see commitment snow: 22, see also water society, priority of: 8, 16 speech-act-theory: 19

straw man: 11, 34, 43, 44 structural coupling: 12 systematic domain: 50, 55 terminology: 3{5
Understanding : 1 understanding language: 45

water: 18, see also snow WF: 2