Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design

by Terry Winograd, Fernando Flores

Overview

This volume is a theoretical and practical approach to the design of computer technology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780201112979
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	01/01/1987
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
	Acknowledgments	xiii
Part I	Theoretical Background
1	Introduction	3
1.1	The question of design	4
1.2	The role of tradition	7
1.3	Our path	8
2	The rationalistic tradition	14
2.1	The rationalistic orientation	14
2.2	Language, truth, and the world	17
2.3	Decision making and problem solving	20
2.4	Cognitive science	23
3	Understanding and Being	27
3.1	Hermeneutics	27
3.2	Understanding and ontology	30
3.3	An illustration of thrownness	33
3.4	Breaking down and readiness-to-hand	36
4	Cognition as a biological phenomenon	38
4.1	The closure of the nervous system	41
4.2	Autopoiesis, evolution, and learning	44
4.3	The cognitive domain	46
4.4	Consensual domains	48
4.5	The observer and description	50
4.6	Domains of explanation	52
5	Language, listening, and commitment	54
5.1	Listening in a background	54
5.2	Meaning, commitment, and speech acts	58
5.3	Objectivity and tradition	60
5.4	Recurrence and formalization	64
5.5	Breakdown, language, and existence	68
6	Towards a new orientation	70
6.1	Cognition and being in the world	70
6.2	Knowledge and representation	72
6.3	Pre-understanding and background	74
6.4	Language and action	76
6.5	Breakdown and the ontology of design	77
Part II	Computation, Thought, and Language
7	Computers and representation	83
7.1	Programming as representation	84
7.2	Levels of representation	86
7.3	Can computers do more than you tell them to do?	90
8	Computation and intelligence	93
8.1	Why do we ask?	93
8.2	Intelligence as rational problem solving	95
8.3	The phenomenon of blindness	97
8.4	What about learning and evolution?	100
8.5	Can pigs have wings?	104
9	Understanding language	107
9.1	Artificial intelligence and language understanding	107
9.2	The problem of background	111
9.3	Understanding as pattern recognition	115
9.4	What does it mean to understand?	119
10	Current directions in artificial intelligence	125
10.1	The forking of the paths	126
10.2	Expert systems	131
10.3	The fifth generation computer system	133
Part III	Design
11	Management and conversation	143
11.1	Management and decision making	144
11.2	Decision making and resolution	147
11.3	Organizations as networks of commitments	150
11.4	Decision support systems	152
11.5	Tools for conversation	157
12	Using computers: A direction for design	163
12.1	A background for computer design	164
12.2	A design example	167
12.3	Systematic domains	174
12.4	Technology and transformation	177
	Bibliography	181
	Name Index	191
	Subject Index	194