TOWARDS A PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERSTANDING OF AFFORDANCE

Andrew Basden.

ABSTRACT

The idea of affordance originated in the field of ecological psychology, was taken up by the HCI community, and has recently attracted interest in the IS field, as a way to tackle the materiality of ICT. However, the discourse in the IS field around affordance has been limited, with too little discussion of the nature of affordance from an IS perspective, nor of how to benefit from insights about affordance that have emerged in the other fields. These require a philosophical understanding of affordance.

By reference to seven philosophical issues that are important in understanding affordance, this paper explores how the philosophy of Dooyeweerd can provide an integrative account of the nature of affordance across the fields. It then demonstrates practically how this account may be used. Contributions are possible in philosophy, theory of affordance, affordance research, and in practical evaluation and design.

KEYWORDS: Affordance, philosophy of affordance, meaning, subject-object relationship, Dooyeweerd, materiality.

1. INTRODUCTION

Zammuto et al. suggest that the notion of affordance can help address such questions. In the field of information systems (IS), affordance is what ICT facilities offer, provide or furnish for ICT users [Bloomfield et al. 2010] and has been defined in several ways, such as "the mutuality of actor intentions and technology capabilities that provide the potential for a particular action" [Majchrzak et al. 2013]. The notion of affordance is proving attractive as a way to theorize and research the ICT artefact and its 'materiality' [Orlikowski & Iacono 2001] as we emerge from a period of domination by perspectives of social construction / shaping [Hutchby 2001; Bloomfield et al. 2010], without returning to technological determinism.

The discourse around affordance in the IS field, however, has been limited, primarily to the construction of taxonomies of affordances, and to how affordance relates to materiality or IS paradigms in general [anon]. There has been little discussion about the nature of affordance in IS as such, though recent discussions of Critical Realism [Mingers et al. 2013; Volkoff & Strong 2013] provide some useful insights.

Though most of the discourse in the IS field about affordance has occurred within the past decade, there has been active discussion of it other fields for decades. Norman [1988] introduced affordance to the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), where it has become widespread in assisting designers. The idea of affordance originated, however, in the 1970s in the field of ecological psychology with the work of J.J. Gibson. In that field there has been a prolific debate on the nature of affordance, yet the IS field has seldom drawn on insights emerging therefrom. Would it not be useful to do so?

In many ways, in the field of ecological psychology, some issues stand out more clearly. A prototypical example of affordance from that field, which will be referred to throughout the discussion that follows in order to illustrate or clarify issues is:

A running animal sees rocks and leaps up, stops and sniffs the air, then continues climbing. To the animal, these rocks afford support, a vantage point and climbability. These affordances are made possible by the physical and spatial properties of the rocks - flat, rigid, having friction, extended, at a certain height relative to the knee-height of the animal, and so on ... Other objects afford eatability, openings afford going-through, and so on, all made possible by some physical or biological characteristics inherent in those objects.

What is so fascinating, important and challenging about the notion of affordance is that, in affordance in general, we have an agent and an environment, and meaning-to-the-agent is located in the environment. The rock affords climbability to 'of itself', to the animal, even though no animal ever climbs it. Gibson [1979] recognised that this was a conundrum that could not be accommodated under conventional ideas of subject and object. He faced it courageously and head-on: "where most psychologists and philosophers are happy naming the divide the subjective-objective, Gibson would rather we repair the cut entirely" [Shaw 2003, 93]. With affordance, "one gets subjectivity and objectivity wrapped up in a single package" [ibid., 97].

Even so, the notion of affordance is still contested and poorly understood even in the field of ecological psychology. McGrenere & Ho's [2000, 8] believe that "As the concept of affordances is used currently, it has marginal value because it lacks specific meaning". Withagen et al. [2012] conclude that "a full-blown account of affordance still awaits us".

This paper suggests a philosophical way towards such a full-blown account. They suggest that it is useful to understand affordance in a way that can be applied across all fields where it might be relevant, from ecological psychology, through HCI to IS, rather than trying to understand it from the isolated position of IS alone. A number of very different kinds of affordance have been identified:

• Affordance of animal in physical environment;
• Affordance of person with hardware artefact;
• Affordance of user with interface objects which any software might employ;
• Affordance of the information content, or the 'world' represented in the ICT; this might be virtual or a representation of the real world, and its objects, to those who engage with the meaningful content;
• Affordance of the ICT artefact and its features to bring benefits in the life or work of the user or organization;
• Affordance of ICT-as-a-whole in the life of society.

There might be others. A general understanding of affordance must cope with any and all of them, and understand the relationships that might exist among them.

This requires philosophical rather than just sociological, psychological or technical treatment. Sanders [1997] argues that affordance is an ontological primitive, and Chemero [2003], that affordance requires a new ontology. In this paper, we seek a philosophical understanding of affordance that satisfies several conditions. It should apply across all the fields and for all kinds of affordance, which will enable us to translate insights in one field across to others. Our philosophical understanding should be able to incorporate extant (and future) theory, as Majchrzak et al. [2013] have done, but, since affordance is something that people experience within their everyday activity, often unaware of it, it should not be constrained by theory but should be open to everyday experience as seen from pre-theoretical perspective. Our philosophical understanding should also not presuppose professional or organizational use of ICT, but should actively encourage interest in other uses, such as in personal use, 'hedonic' use [Lin & Bhattarcherjee 2010]. Following Treem & Leonardi [2012] we seek to make possible a 'stable' and comprehensive understanding of affordance, by providing a philosophical framework by that will apply across situations in which affordances occur. We seek a framework by reference to which taxonomies of affordance may be critiqued.

This involves identifying philosophical issues that are important to affordance of all kinds. Seven philosophical issues that are foundationally important to affordance are discussed below:

• the diversity of types and kinds of affordance,
• the agent-environment relationship,
• engaged activity,
• perception,
• possibility,
• normativity, and
• meaning.

Meaning is particularly important in affordance, and yet conventional presuppositions about meaning do not apply thereto. Though various philosophies have been applied to understanding some of these issues (Heidegger for the relationship, Vygotsky for activity, Merleau-Ponty for perception and Critical Realism for activity and possibility), it would be preferable if they could be understood together with a single philosophy. Because [anon] discusses the limitations of these philosophies in understanding affordance, they are not discussed here.

Instead, this paper explores how the radically different philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) might help us understand all these issues. Section 2 summarises the issues, section 3 introduces Dooyeweerd's approach to account for meaning, diversity and normativity, section 4 used to Dooyeweerd to understand the other issues, and section 5 applies this Dooyeweerdian understanding to some practical challenges. This will then allow future discussion of how Dooyeweerd's account of affordance compares with that of other philosophers.

2. PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES IN AFFORDANCES

The issue of diversity sets the scene across the fields. The issue of meaning is the last, but requires more discussion than the others because it has been presumed more than discussed in discourses around affordance and has not been adequately discussed in philosophy. In between are the issues that have received most debate.

2.1 Diversity

Immediately we can see both a diversity of kinds of affordance and a diversity of types of affordance within each kind. Diversity challenges us in two ways. Theoretically, how do we understand the philosophical grounds of diversity and identity, the relationship between kinds and types, how different kinds relate to each other, and how different types relate to each other? Practically, on what grounds may we identify, critique and classify types of affordance (to construct taxonomies), and kinds of affordance (in different fields)? Michaels [2003] illustrates how diversity raises challenges: on what grounds is it nonsense to say that beautiful-Saturday-afternoon affords high-swinging (in baseball)? Both require philosophical understanding of the nature of diversity.

2.2 Relationship between Agent and Environment

"An important fact about the affordances of the environment is that they are in a sense objective, real, and physical, unlike values and meanings, which are often supposed to be subjective, phenomenal and mental. But actually an affordance is neither an objective property nor a subjective property, or it is both if you like. An affordance cuts across the dichotomy of subjective-objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy." [Gibson 1979, 129]

Heidegger's tendency to dissolve the distinction between subject and object might move us forward with this particular challenge [Dotov 2012], but in everyday experience of using ICT we are aware of a difference even though ICT might also be an actant [Latour 1987]. Symmetry is not full in that the agent depends on the environment but the environment does not depend on the agent in the same way [Gibson 1979, 129].

Moreover, in Mansour et al.'s [2013] study of collaborative use of wikis, we also find a subject-subject relationship.

2.3 Engaged Activity

This gives us several philosophical challenges. How can we account for both agent and environment activity and the relationship between them without resorting to reductionism? When we consider the kinds of affordance shown in Table 1, how can we account for all these different kinds of activity. Multiple affordances working together [Volkoff & Strong 2013] make the picture even more complex.

Many authors presuppose that the IS user's engagement with affordances involves rational choice [Mansour et al. 2013] towards goals [Markus & Silver 2008; Leonardi 2013; Volkoff & Strong 2013]. However, in actual experience, users are unaware of the affordances [Heft 2003] and more closely and proximally engaged Polanyi 1967]. In computer games, users are immersed in affordances [Rambusch & Susi 2008].

2.4 Perception

Perception goes hand-in-hand with action and, like activity, perception may be either distal, involving analytical awareness, or proximal, involving tacit engagement.

2.5 Possibility

While many [e.g. Norman 1999] are content to understand affordance in terms of perception, Turvey [1992] distinguishes perceived from inherent affordances. Michaels [2003] argues that affordances exist even when not perceived. Perceptions change across different contexts even when inherent affordances might not [Faraj & Azad 2012]. "Materiality exists independent of people, but affordances and constraints do not" Leonardi [2013]. Turvey [1992] then argues that inherent affordances are related to lawfulness.

Understanding possibility can shift the IS discourse around affordance from a retrospective study to one that is future-orientated, allowing prediction and design. Application of affordance to design already occurs in the HCI field, and perhaps would be useful in a different manner in IS development.

2.6 Normativity

The philosophical challenge is not only how to understand normativity as such (e.g. via utility, deontology or virtue) but also how to understand this diversity of kinds of normativity and relate them.

2.7 Meaning

Affordance necessarily and always involves meaning-to-the-agent, which environmental objects afford. The word 'meaning' is found 53 times in Heft [2003], 41 times in Shaw [2003], 20 times in Costall [2012], 31 times in Hartson [2003], 60 times in Schmidt [2007]. Sometimes 'value' or other terms are used, but here they are treated as synonymous; discussion of the distinction between such concepts must wait another time or, as in Michaels' [2003], meaning clearly lurks under the surface.

Gibson's ideas are "an ecological theory of meaning" [Schmidt 2007; Michaels 2003], and in the IS field, "this notion of meaning can be seen as being at the heart of whether an individual makes use or does not make use of ICT" [Selwyn 2003, 109]. The widespread attention given to meaning, in all fields, is significant, suggesting that affordance of all kinds cannot be properly understood without understanding meaning.

Meaning is diverse - physical meaning, psychological meaning, lingual meaning, social meaning, etc. and any thing may be meaningful in several ways. The word 'aspect' will be used to denote a way of being meaningful. [anon] suggest that affordances may be characterized by three ways of being meaningful:

• a general agent aspect;
• an environment aspect;
• a specific aspect of purpose or activity.

'Meaning-to-the-agent' usually involves the first and third, and distinct kinds of affordance may be differentiated by the first and second together, for example "psychical and physical" [Gibson 1979, 129] for animal affordances. Affordances are "relations between particular aspects of animals and particular aspects of situations" Chemero [2003, 184]. Table 4 below analyses the affordances in Table 1 by aspect.

In most philosophy meaning has either been largely ignored (especially in metaphysics), treated as imposed by Divine revelation and therefore not to be investigated, or as attributed ex nihilo by free consciousness or intersubjective agreement. None of these approaches are fully adequate to understand affordance, qua affordance, however, where meaning-to-the-agent is located in the object and not just the subject. As Sanders [1993, 295, italics in original] put it, "significance is not merely attributed to otherwise 'neutral' things - or sense data - in the world; rather, significance is already found in the world in our most primitive encounters with it." Gibson [1979, 140] likewise "The perceiving of an affordance is not a process of perceiving a value-free physical object to which meaning is somehow added in a way that no one has been able to agree upon; it is a process of perceiving a value-rich ecological object."

In ICT (in IS and HCI), much of the meaning located in the ICT is inscribed by the developers and users. However, a third meaning may be detected that lies behind these, which does not have its origin in either developers or users. It is seen in unexpected or innovative use of IS [Majchzrak & Markus 2013]. For instance, though we might argue that the metavoicing affordance [Majchrzak et al. 2013] might have been intended developers, who implemented voting facilities, the groupthink that it leads to was not something not envisaged by designers nor even users.

This implies that we need an understanding of meaning that does not depend wholly on attribution of meaning by the agents (users or developers). The location of meaning-to-agent in the environment requires philosophical explanation. Somehow there is a meaningfulness that transcends both subject and object. Somehow, both agent and environment are both 'within' meaningfulness, as fish and corals are 'within' the ocean that enables both fish and corals to be what they are and function as they do. Heidegger [1962] argued that existence cannot be properly understood except as "in-the-world". In a similar vein, meaning should be understood as something we are "in-" -- but in this case, world or environment as well as the agent are included in the 'we' that are "in-".

"The theory of affordances," Gibson [1979, 140] wrote, "is a radical departure from existing theories of value and meaning." Costall [2012] sees it as a "truly radical break with the long tradition of Western thought that has held that meanings and values are purely subjective and hence unreal" and noted that though Gibson's main interest was perception, he recognised that the ontological question of what meaning is, is important. Gibson had written "a remarkable, though largely forgotten, chapter on meaning, in his first book, The perception of the visual world (1950)", which "anticipated the concept {of affordance} in several important ways" [Costall 2012, 87].

It may be that Heidegger [1962, 193,371] was alluding to this meaning-that-transcends when he said that meaning is the "upon-which" things are what they are, and Merleau-Ponty [1964, 39-83] also, when he argued that meaning is not only that which is explicit in language but also that which is implicit or behind language. Neither of these thinkers developed this, however. Examination of Bhaskar [2002; 2008] shows that Critical Realism tends to treat meaning as contained in symbols, and does not provide a foundation for understanding meaning as already 'there' in the object.

The Dutch thinker, Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), however, did develop this; he took meaning as a starting-point.

3. DOOYEWEERD'S PHILOSOPHY AND MEANING, DIVERSITY AND NORMATIVITY

Dooyeweerd's philosophy has been recommended by Myers & Klein [2011] as an alternative foundation for critical IS research, and has been employed variously in the field of IS etc. in knowledge elicitation [Winfield et al. 1996], humane technology [de Raadt 1997], systems thinking [Mirijamdotter & Bergvall-Kåreborn 2006; Basden & Wood-Harper 2006], knowledge engineering [Basden & Klein 2008], IS evaluation [Eriksson 2001], IS paradigms [Eriksson 2003; Basden 2011], philosophy of IS [Bergvall-Kåreborn 2006], HCI [Breems & Basden 2014], and an in-depth discussion of many of these in Basden [2008].

This section briefly explains some relevant parts of Dooyeweerd's philosophy and discusses how they might address the issues related to affordance identified in the previous section.

3.1 Some Problems in Conventional Philosophies

It is these very problems that directly hinder discourse on affordance. For this reason we explore what Dooyeweerd's philosophy and approach to philosophy might afford out discourse on affordance.

3.2 Dooyeweerd and Meaning

Refusing to take an Immanence Standpoint, Dooyeweerd was thereby freed to take two main starting points for his discussion of philosophy and theoretical thought that were highly unconventional for his time:

• Everyday experience. The pre-theoretical attitude is treated as more fundamental than the theoretical attitude. Everyday experience is treated, not as something to denigrate (as in Greek thought), nor as something to explain using a prior commitment to theoretical thought, but as the very starting point for understanding theoretical thought.

• Meaning. Meaning is not generated ex nihilo by the processes of signification or attribution, but is that within which we all function and exist. Meaning is prior to existence, becoming and functioning, and makes them possible. "Meaning is the being of all that has been created and the nature even of our selfhood." [Dooyeweerd 1984, I, 4] Dooyeweerd's understanding of meaning echoes Heidegger's understanding of being as 'in-the-world', but took it further. Not only things but also the world is 'in-' meaning. All reality is meaningful prior to any agent attributing meaning to anything.

In this view, both agent and environment of affordance are 'in-' meaning, and function 'in-' meaning, and the meaning within which both exist and function is common to both and enable both. This implies that the environment can share in whatever might be meaningful to the agent, at least in a general way. This will help us understand the issue of meaning as it is important to affordance, and especially how, in principle, meaning-to-the-agent can be located in the environment even when no agent is present. However, to understand this fully, we need to explore the diversity of meaning and how meaning relates to other issues.

Given the diversity of meaning experienced in the pre-theoretical attitude, Dooyeweerd did not wish to reduce that, but to understand what ways of being meaningful (aspects) there may, how this meaningfulness relates to being, functioning, possibility and normativity. Are there any basic ways of being meaningful and, if so, what are they?

3.3 Dooyeweerd's Aspects: Spheres of Meaning

Column 3 contains an expression of an in-built normativity that attends each aspect. The kernel meaning is usually a good (a value) that enables reality to flourish, and in most aspects a negative opposes this, and normativity can often be more clearly understood by expressing this negative. So column 3 contains an adjective that expresses some negative meaningful in the aspect. Aspectual normativity is not social norms but something deeper. Like meaning, aspectual normativity holds for all agents in all situations.

Dooyeweerd's aspects offer a conceptual tool for separating out, clarifying and discussing what is actually good and evil in each case. For example Majchrzak et al. [2013] mention groupthink and "rich get richer", but what is negative about them? Answer: groupthink is negative in the pistic aspect of belief, and "rich get richer" is negative, not in the economic aspect, but in the juridical aspect of due. HCI's notion of poor affordance is usually negative or detrimental in the formative aspect (difficult to use) and/or the lingual aspect (misleading). This can clarify Norman's [1999] distinction between real and perceived affordances.

Note 1: Dooyeweerd called the aspects 'later' and 'earlier' rather than 'higher' and 'lower', because he held all aspects to be equally important and they are bound up with his theory of time, which is not discussed here.

Note 2: Dooyeweerd [1984, II, 556] explicitly warned against taking any suite of aspects, including his own, as any final 'truth'. However, his aspects may be used for practical purposes, as a taxonomy of ways of being meaningful, as long as we are aware of this. Dooyeweerd's suite is, arguably, the best we have at our disposal [Basden 2008, 66,79].

Note 3: The aspects are intertwined with each other, each containing echoes of all the others and each dependent on the others for realization of their full meaningfulness.

Note 4: Attribution and signification are seen as made possible within meaningfulness, not as its absolute origin. The lingual act of signification involves 'carving out' pieces of meaning to form symbols - though meaning is always still connected to all other meaning so that the meaning of a symbol is complex. When Merleau-Ponty [1962] argued that speech (signification) consists of "tearing out a meaning from an undivided whole", it may be that he was arriving at and reaching for what Dooyeweerd took as his starting point.

4. USING DOOYEWEERD TO UNDERSTAND POSSIBILITY, RELATIONSHIP, ACTIVITY AND PERCEPTIOJN IN AFFORDANCE

To Dooyeweerd, meaning and law are intimately intertwined. Each aspect (sphere of meaning) is also a sphere of law, and the laws of one aspect cannot be reduced to (explained by) those of any other. Law implies possibility. Dooyeweerd's suite enables us to extend Turvey's [1992] focus on the laws of the physical aspect to all spheres of life and kinds of affordance, so we have at our disposal many distinct kinds of possibility. The laws of the physical aspect enable properties like rigidity and friction, those of the spatial aspect, flatness, horizontality and extension, and the laws of the psychic aspect enable sensorimotor functioning like seeing and climbing. Those of the lingual aspect enable signification.

That provides half of an account of possibility that is affordance. The other half is provided by the other 'side' of temporal reality. Dooyeweerd distinguished two sides of reality:

• a law side, which is the combination of the aspectual laws that make things possible in principle;

• a fact side, which is the whole of what is actualized - all the things, events, processes, etc. that happen or have happened. This includes not just physical existences and processes like rock and friction, but also biotic, mental, logical, technological, linguistic, social, economic, aesthetic, jural, ethical and pistic existences.

The foundations of possibility are in the law side, but the fact side delivers actual enablements in actual situations. For example, the climbability of a particular rock depends on its particular friction and flatness. Constraint is usually from the fact side.

To Dooyeweerd, all activity is a responding to the possibility-giving laws of each of the aspects by an agent as subject. All activity is multi-aspectual functioning that is meaningful in all (or several) aspects. For example, in hitting keys (physical aspect) to alter text (formative aspect) I am writing it (lingual), aware of wordcount limits (economic) - all simultaneously as a single activity. Several things are afforded in different aspects.

Though aspects are irreducibly distinct, there is interdependency between aspects, where functioning in earlier aspects is necessary for that in later aspects. For example, the psychical functioning of climbing and being-climbed depends on physical functioning of friction and rigidity; writing depends on altering text, which depends on key-hitting. Dependence on the lingual aspect is particularly important in ICT; it is information that enables. Most affordances discussed in tne IS field share a common lingual environment aspect, that of information, as shown in Table 4 below.

Affordance may be seen as expressing inter-aspect dependency, between an agent-meaningful aspect and aspects in which the environment thing functions. The non-symmetry of affordance [Gibson 1979] is thus explained.

Functioning in most aspects is proximal, and we are unaware of it, and 'just do it'; we are functioning 'in-' meaning. It becomes distal via our functioning in the analytical aspect, when we apply it to separate out and conceptualize our functioning in any aspect. For example, as soon as We think "I am writing" our lingual functioning becomes distal.

The entire (fact-side) reality is also functioning in all aspects, along with us. Interaction between agent and environment is constituted in them functioning in the same aspect in a subject-subject or subject-object relationship. Thus, e.g., as the animal's foot exerts force on the rock (physical functioning of animal), the rock exerts equal-and-opposite force (physical functioning of rock) and friction results. As the animal climbs (psychical functioning of animal), the rock is-being-climbed (psychical functioning of rock). Such environment-functioning seems passive, but Dooyeweerd saw it as the rock responding to aspectual law and possibility. Environment-activity is more clearly seen in ICT, where the installed software makes changes to the stored document (formative functioning of ICT) that constituted the writer's making-changes to their text (formative functioning of user). Likewise, two people converse when both function in the lingual aspect, and collaborate when both function in the social aspect.

This view lends itself very naturally to understanding the engaged activity that is affordance, and the aspects help us separate out the various roles played. This multi-aspectual functioning sees the objects as intimately engaged with the subjects, which suits understanding affordance in everyday experience.

The agent-environment relationship is constituted in joint aspectual functioning. This is Dooyeweerd's notion of subject-object and subject-subject relationships, which is radically different from the conventional notion, which causes problems in understanding affordance, in that whether an entity is subject or object lies not in itself but in its role in aspectual functioning. To be a subject is constituted in being subject to law, the deep laws of the law side; the agent is responsible and responding to the aspectual laws (in this way, Dooyeweerd reunites the two English meanings of 'subject'). Functioning as object is when the meaning of the functioning is is as part of an agent's subject-functioning.

This view offers a philosophical basis for Gibson's desire to give us "subjectivity and objectivity wrapped up in a single package" [Shaw 2003, 97], but one that is highly versatile. It provides a way of understanding complex situations with multiple subjects and objects, such as Mansour et al. [2013] describe in wiki collaboration, because all are seen as governed by the same multi-aspectual law side.

Perception, to Dooyeweerd, is a functioning in certain aspects in relation to other things. It involves the psychical aspect of seeing and recognising, which might be enough for animal affordance, the analytic aspect of singling-out, which is important at the user interface, along with the formative aspect of executing plans at the user interface and the lingual aspect of interpreting the meaning of the information content. In IS, perception of what an ICT artefact or system affords involves the lingual, social and later aspects, and especially the juridical aspect of grasping the appropriateness or otherwise of things. Society's 'perception' of ICT-as-a-whole might involve the ethical aspect of attitude and the pistic aspect of belief.

At the individual levels of human perception, Dooyeweerd would suggest two kinds: perception that is proximal subject-object engagement (animal seeing rock and jumping onto it), or the user of the editing software, and perception that is distal observation (as in commenting on a scene). Both are important in HCI and IS affordances.

4.5 Overview of Important Affordance Issues

The next section discusses how the above understanding of the issues of affordance may be applied to IS affordance.

5. APPLICATION OF THE DOOYEWEERDIAN UNDERSTANDING OF AFFORDANCE

5.1 A Dooyeweerdian Model of Affordance

• Main agent aspect of affordance: Which aspect makes the general role of the agent meaningful in this affordance?

• Environment aspect of affordance: In which aspect is the environment most meaningful, in its own terms? e.g. Lingual for information.

• Specific purpose aspect of affordance: Which aspect makes the specific activity or purpose meaningful?

The main agent aspect is almost always later than the environment aspect in Dooyeweerd's sequence, because affordance expresses inter-aspect dependency. The specific purpose aspect, however, may be any aspect.

The normativity of the specific purpose aspect indicates both benefits and detriments that might result from the affordance. Where the agent aspect is the social or later aspects, such impacts can have wider repercussions and assume more importance.

Table 4 shows the three aspects for the various kinds and types of affordance shown in Table 1. For affordance kinds, column 1 gives the author of the taxonomy or kind of affordance, column 2 and 3 give the environment and main agent aspects. For affordance types, whether examples or whole taxonomies, columns 2-3 show the specific affordance and column 4 gives the specific purpose aspect.

Sometimes what is intended by authors is clear, as in Gibson's [1979, 129] statement that affordances are "psychical and physical". Hartson's [2003] four affordances each have different agent-environment aspect pairs, but their physical affordance confuses genuine physical (hardware) with the psychical-analytic activity at the user interface. Since Hartson offers scores of examples, only a few examples are included in the table.

In the field of IS, however, some judgement must be exercised, by examining the discussion of each affordance in detail. For example, the five discussed by Zammuto et al. [2007] all have the lingual aspect as their environment aspect (information), and the social aspect as the main agent aspect, because it is all about organizational activity, but have different specific aspects. For example, what makes visualization of entire work processes meaningful is the analytic aspect of clarity and the aesthetic aspect of harmonizing. The discussion of virtual collaboration seems to be slightly less about the social aspect and more about information; hence lingual aspect.

Conole & Dyke [2004] discuss two kinds of affordance in each of their specific affordances (of ICT-as-a-whole to society, and of educational ICT to users), so aspectual analysis is applied separately to statements made about each. For example, their 'accessibility' affordance refers, at the societal level, to "relatively easy access to vast amounts of information", treated as a resource; hence economic aspect. At the users' level, they refer to "information overload" and the need to select from what is available; hence analytic aspect.

5.2 Critique of Kinds of Affordance

Games affordances include an HCI affordance, an affordance in the virtual world, and an affordance in human life (fun) [anon]. Only the third is shown in the table. The environment aspect is lingual (information) and the main agent aspect is the aesthetic (fun). The social aspect might be important in certain classes of game but it is always secondary to the aspect of fun. That games have a different agent aspect from most IS affordances might explain why they are seldom discussed in the IS literature, which seems concerned mainly with ICT-in-organizations. However, if the IS literature were to concern itself with ICT-in-life, then this third games affordance becomes relevant. This offers a philosophically sound reason why the IS community should take games more seriously, and presents a major research opportunity.

Such an analysis also enables us to situate all the kinds of affordance within a wider picture, rather as isolated from each other, offers a basis for understanding links between different kinds of affordance, and opens up discourse between different kinds of affordance and their taxonomies.

That human activity exhibits all aspects simultaneously in principle, provides a basis for expecting different kinds of affordance to be present in the one activity of IS use. While engaged in mass collaboration [Zammuto et al. 2007], the user is functioning in the social and lingual aspects (IS affordance), but simultaneously is interacting with a user interface, which involves lingual down to psychical aspects (HCI), and also fingering keys or screen (physical to psychical aspects: animal-like affordance). Further, the nature of the link between kinds of affordance can be revealed: when the agent aspect of one is the environment aspect of another, one affordance delivers something to enable the other. Thus HCI delivers information (lingual aspect) for IS.

Such a proposal, that several kinds of affordance might work together via a shared aspect, might be a new, fruitful avenue for IS research. The key to understanding how these link together is not some amorphous notion of human behaviour, but the very specific laws and meaning of aspects.

5.4 Concerning Types of Affordance and Taxonomies

In taxonomies, several items sharing the same specific purpose aspect might indicate some overlap or redundancy, or they might indicate distinct manifestations of the aspect. For example, might network-informed association and generative role-taking [Majchrzak et al.'s 2013], both social aspect, belong together? Might metavoicing and triggered attending, both analytical aspect, belong together? In such ways, Dooyeweerdian analysis can generate questions for critique and further research.

Where an taxonomy omits aspects, this too can stimulate research questions, to seek other types of affordance. Conole & Dyke [2004] asked whether their ten affordances were sufficient. The physical and biotic aspects are missing, which are to do with the societal issues of climate change and biodiversity, so we might ask whether ICT-as-a-whole affords something relevant to climate change (e.g. by power consumed or by changing people's behaviour). Majchrzak et al. [2013] omit the aesthetic, juridical and ethical aspects of knowledge conversations, so we might ask whether social media might offer features that afford, respectively, harmony in conversations, doing justice to topic or to participants, or generosity or narcissism [Connell 2014]?

In such ways, Dooyeweerd's aspects can simulate critique of taxonomy items and questions for further research.

5.4 Translation of Issues Across Fields

There is little real discourse around affordance between different fields. Since our Dooyeweerdian understanding of the issues important to affordance applies across all fields, it should be possible to translate insights emerging from one field across to others, by taking account of how the issues are manifested differently across the fields. The difference may be explained by the different ranges of aspects that are important in each kind of affordance, as indicated in Table 4. Two examples of how this may be done will be discussed here: normativity and the agent-environment relationship.

The normativity in affordance relates to the aspects in which it is meaningful, as indicated in Table 2. Translating findings about normativity in one field to another involves reinterpreting them according to the normativity of aspects that are most relevant in that field. In the IS field, normativity is diverse, prevalent and widely discussed. This is because the normativities encountered come from all aspects and are more apparent as beneficial or detrimental impacts. HCI normativity is more limited, relates to those aspects that constitute ease of use: analytic, formative and lingual (clarity, achievement and understandability). However, some of the normativity of social, economic and later aspects might be relevant to HCI. In ecological psychology normativity is seldom discussed, but we may ask whether there is any normativity in its aspects that might be discussed - e.g. health (biotic) and responsiveness (psychical). Seeing these as normative rather than descriptive might stimulate new ideas.

The agent-environment relationship takes on a different form in each field, according to the aspects in which it occurs, and becomes richer as we move along the aspectual sequence, from ecological psychology to IS affordances. In ecological psychology only three roles are possible, physical, biotic and psychical (ignoring the mathematical aspects) in which the agent might be subject and the environment either subject or object. In IS all twelve post-mathematical aspects offer subject and object roles, so in any one incident of IS use several distinct subject and object roles might coincide. In game-playing, for example, we have the role of HCI affordance, and the role of 'player' who seeks fun, in which the agent aspect is the aesthetic. Rambusch & Susi [2008] discuss the HCI role, and name but do not discuss the player role. They mention a third role (confusingly mixed with HCI), the avatar. In this, the human agent is functioning in the formative aspect of imagination.

In a similar way, possibility, activity and perception might be manifested differently in different ranges of aspects. Diversity increases as the range of aspects increases, and new issues become meaningful that were largely irrelevant in earlier aspects. Insights from fields dominated by earlier aspects might be widened by the new meaning from later aspects, and vice versa. That Dooyeweerd extensively discussed how the aspects relate to each other in dependency and analogy [1984, Volume II] provides copious material to guide translation of the idea across fields.

6. CONCLUSION

6.1 Overview

Meaning is the central issue. Affordance refers to meaning-to-the-agent located in the environment, and yet the presuppositions about meaning, which have been held by philosophy for 2,500 years, no longer apply. Meaning must not be presumed to be secondary to reality, not merely generated ex nihilo by attribution. Instead, affordance requires an understanding of meaning that is prior to being, functioning, perception and is the grounds of possibility.

Dooyeweerd's philosophy offers such an undertanding of meaning and it is shown, in sections 3 and 4, how the other issues may by understood in its light. His notion of irreducibly distinct aspects (ways of being meaningful) is particularly useful. This provides an understanding of the issues of affordance, which can provide a coherent picture, which is summarised in Table 3. A simple 'model' of affordance as referring to three aspects is presented. Affordance is seen as expressing the inter-dependency among aspects that enables all of life and temporal reality to occur, including the use of information systems in human and social life.

Dooyeweerd's suite of aspects, summarised in Table 2, provide fifteen distinct ways in which things may be meaningful, ranging from mathematical and physical, through biotic and psychical, to social, and societal. They are useful in understanding diversity of kinds of affordance and of types within each kind, as shown in Table 4. Such analyses are useful for discussing and researching the relationship between kinds of affordance, and for critique of the discussion of types of affordance of any given kind, and especially of taxonomies of affordance. Dooyeweerd's notion of aspects provides a basis on which insights in each field concerning issues in affordance may be translated across to other fields.

There are two main limitations in this discussion. One is that Dooyeweerd's philosophy is not well known, and the brief introduction offered above is unlikely to be sufficient for many readers. Possible limitations of Dooyeweerd's philosophy have not been discussed; though a number have applied his ideas in the IS field (see earlier references), more research needs to occur before their true limitations are revealed. The other limitation of this discussion is the brevity of the substantial discussion. Some of the issues require much deeper exploration, by all three of philosophy, IS theory and practice, and the application of Dooyeweerd's philosophy to understand them needs to be taken further and operationalized. Though some operationalization has been demonstrated, these are mainly at the proposal stage which need developing. That a range of authors have already found Dooyeweerd useful in discussing various IS issues (see earlier references), suggests that research in the area of affordance based on Dooyeweerd is likely to be fruitful.

6.2 Possible Contributions

In fact, the Dooyeweerdian account of affordance can go beyond the confines of organizational or social application of technology to include such under-researched areas as computer games and virtual reality and everyday use in which the user is unaware of affordances that are there but benefits from them just the same.

This approach to understanding affordance might offer several contributions, one to practice, two to affordance research, and two to theory of affordance, especially in the IS field.

• In practical evaluation of ICT use, the triple-aspect 'model', along with Dooyeweerd's suite of aspects, can assist analysts in revealing and thinking about actual and potential affordances and constraints of many kinds, especially those that are often overlooked [c.f. Eriksson 2001]. The innate normativity of aspects can be especially useful in critical IS evaluation.

• In affordance research, especially in the IS field but also in other fields, the triple-aspect 'model' with Dooyeweerd's suite of aspects can help separate out issues and organise ideas for research. As mentioned several times above, it is useful for critiquing or reviewing existing research and raising questions for new or further research. Reference to aspects not yet covered can point to possible new kinds and types of affordance to research. In this way, not only may extant research be critiqued and enriched, but new avenues of research might be opened up.

• Insights about the nature of affordance from other fields can be translated across into IS, and vice versa, by reference to seven cross-field issues as they manifest themselves differently, according to which aspects are meaningful in the fields. IS might then become a reference discipline for those fields [Baskerville & Myers 2002]. In particular, this provides a basis for enabling and encouraging more discourse between the HCI and IS fields, which has so far been rather limited.

• The characterization of affordance by three aspects (of agent, environment and specific purpose) may be a useful contribution to affordance theory, especially when coupled with Dooyeweerd's understanding of meaning as something both agent and world function and exist 'within'. The latter provides philosophical affirmation for, the existence of affordance independently of perception [Michaels 2003; Hutchby 2001] and how meaning-to-the-agent is located in the environment objects [Gibson 1979]. It does so without resorting to essentialism, technological determinism or the dissolving of the asymmetry between agent and environment found in Heidegger [1962] and Latour [1987], and it allows for the active environment that is ICT.

• Understanding the relationship between different kinds of affordance, as involving shared aspects and inter-aspect dependency, might usefully contribute to theory of affordance, especially in the IS field. This can encourage dialogue among fields, especially about how different taxonomies might relate to each other. Understanding the laws and meaning of shared aspects, as extensively discussed in Volume II of Dooyeweerd [1984], can provide important pointers for theoretical understanding of how multiple affordances work together; this might augment Volkoff & Strong's [2013] suggestions.

Other contributions might be possible. The triple-aspect 'model', along with Dooyeweerd's suite of aspects, might assist design of ICT artefacts and features according to the task-requirements of users and organizations, and not just their HCI, especially when guided by the innate normativity of Dooyeweerd's aspects. Dooyeweerd's philosophy, which sees meaning as prior to being, functioning and possibility and offers a radically different understanding of the subject-object relationship, might be an important contribution to mainstream philosophy itself, but this, unfortunately, has yet to occur. His suite of aspects provides a tentative taxonomy of meaning.

Though our discussion has necessarily been brief, this Dooyeweerdian account of all seven issues together, which are important in affordance, in a way that applies across all kinds of affordance and the fields of IS, HCI and ecological psychology, might thus be able to offer the "full-blown" account of affordance that Withagen et al. [2012] seek. It remains, now, for those interested in affordance to explore, in greater depth and with empirical study, how it might benefit them.

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