Our linguistic communication often takes the form of creating texts. In this paper, we propose that creating texts or ‘texting’ is a form of joint action. We examine the nature and evolution of this joint action. We argue that creating texts ushers in a special type of joint action, which, while lacking some central features of normal, everyday joint actions such as spatio-temporal collocation of agency and embodiment, nonetheless results in an authentic, strong, and unique type of joint action agency. (...) This special type of agency is already present in creating texts in general and is further augmented in creating texts through digital media. We propose that such a unique type of joint action agency has a transformative effect on the experience of our sense of agency and subjectivity. We conclude with the implications of the proposal for social cognition and social agency. The paper combines research in philosophy of mind with the emerging fields of digital humanities and text technology. (shrink)

In this paper we address the epistemological debate between emerging perceptual accounts of knowing other minds and traditional theory of mind approaches to the problem of other minds. We argue that the current formulations of the debate are conceptually misleading and empirically unfounded. Rather, the real contribution of PA is to point out a certain ‘immediacy’ that characterizes episodes of mindreading. We claim that while the intuition of immediacy should be preserved for explaining the nature and function of some cognitive (...) processes of mindreading, the notion of immediacy should apply for describing a particular epistemic attitude and not a particular type of epistemic access. We draw on Wittgenstein's discussions of one's relation to other minds to elaborate our claims and to move the epistemological discussions beyond stalling debates between ToM and PA. (shrink)

For quite some time, the research in artificial intelligence has focused on expert systems, because here are to be found practical applications at the experimental stage which may soon become widespread. This focus makes more pressing the need to link the debate about the fundamental efficiency of artificial intelligence with those activities that aim at the application of specialized expert systems. In this paper, I begin by considering the stages and the development of human expertise. As a frame of reference (...) I propose a polar dialectic model of the development of human acting and thinking that explicitly deals with the interplay of calculating rationality and intuition. This suggests the use of expert systems as decision aids particularly in the field of maintenance work on the shop-floor. With regard to this case, some theses concerning the human-centred shaping of technology and work are presented. (shrink)

This article questions the concept of tacit knowledge as the basis for our conceptual understanding of practice. The first part of the article is a critical introduction to the concept of tacit knowledge. It is emphasized that this concept is situated in various academic practices and not defined and homogeneously but in accordance with issues and intentions significant for these practices. The second part of the article outlines some consequences of conceptualizing practice as basically a matter of tacit knowledge. It (...) is argued that tacit knowledge should be seen in relation to the growth of professions in modern society and to the need to legitimate them. It is further claimed that as a legitimating concept tacit knowledge may bring about various problems leading to a marginalization of specific experiences, to social uniformity, to the reappearance of individualism and to the maintenance of a dualistic view of knowledge. (shrink)