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8. Polanyi, M., The Tacit Dimension (Anchor Books, Garden City, NY, 1967).
9. Pribram, K.H., Languages of the Brain (Wadsworth, Monterey, CA, 1977).
10. Rorty, R., Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,
1979).
11. Schank, R.C., Failure-driven memory, Cognition and Brain Theory 4 (1) (1981) 41-60.
12. Weizenbaum, J., Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation
(Freeman, San Francisco, CA, 1976).
13. Wilber, K.W. (Ed.), The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes (Shambhala, Boulder,
CO, 1982).
14. Winograd, T., Understanding Natural Language (Academic Press, New York, 1972).
15. Wittgenstein L., Philosophical Investigations (Macmillan, New York, 1958).

On Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New

Foundation for Design
A response to the reviews
Terry Winograd
Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Stanford,
CA 94305, U. S, A .
Fernando Flores
Logonet, Inc., Berkeley, CA 94704, U . S . A .

1. A theory of language
In Understanding Computers and Cognition, we presented a theory of language, on which we base our understanding of cognition and of computers. It
includes some basic assertions about how language works:
(1) Language does not convey information. It evokes an understanding, or
"listening," which is an interaction between what was said and the preunderstanding already present in the listener.
(2) An utterance produces different understanding for different listeners,
since each person has a background of pre-understanding generated by a
particular history. This background does not determine interpretation in a rigid
way, but generates the domain of possibilities for how what is heard will be
interpreted.
(3) The background that is relevant to understanding grows out of concerns,
practices, and breakdowns in those practices. People interpret language in a
way that makes sense for what they do.
(4) The background of concerns and practices is not purely individual, but is
generated within a tradition. Each person is unique, sharing background to
varying extents with other people. Some amount is universally human; more is
shared with m e m b e r s of the same culture; more yet with those in the same line
of work; and still more with partners in frequent conversation.

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The reviews collected here offer a striking validation of this theory. The
same piece of language (in this case, our book) produced four widely different
understandings, each generated within the background of a particular listener.
The important issue is not that different reviewers "liked" the book more or
less, but that they heard it as addresing different concerns in different ongoing
conversations. We will begin our response by examining their interpretations
and the backgrounds in which they arose.
2. Four traditions

In the book, we use "tradition" in a relatively broad sense, discussing at some

length the "rationalistic tradition," which has developed over the course of
centuries in Western society (see Chapter 2). In this response, we will focus on
more narrowly delineated traditions, associated with a particular academic
discipline or even a "school" within a discipline. At this scale the differences of
background among the reviewers become most visible.
In identifying each of the reviews with a tradition, we do not imply that an
individual can be taken purely as a representative. Each of us is a product of a
unique history and has individual concerns. However, all too often in our
culture, people focus on individuality without recognizing the degree to which
thought and language are shaped by a history shared with others. In characterizing these four responses as representing traditions, we deliberately deemphasize the personal aspects, in order to bring out the generality--to show
how these authors reflect a much wider circle of potential readers.
Vellino
Vellino responds in the tradition of academic analytic philosophy: his primary
concern is the articulation of "ideas" and logical arguments supporting them.
The abstractions take on a life of their own, and the discourse centers on their
logic, rather than on trying to make sense of them with respect to some world
of practical concerns. In his entire review, he does not consider any of the
questions we take as primary: how our theory makes sense in the practice of
work and what it offers for design. Instead, he enters into a debate about the
arguments, focussing on identifying " . . . mistaken belief that the language of
the analytic tradition is not sufficient to express ideas that are critical of its own
p r e s u p p o s i t i o n s . . . [and that] analytic theories cannot handle context dependency in natural language."
What is most revealing in these comments is the unquestioned assumption
that the appropriate domain for discussion is that of "beliefs," "ideas,"
"presuppositions," "analysis," " t h e o r y , " and so on. One of the major directions of our book is precisely to question this assumption--to show how
language works in terms that do not postulate such objects of thought (see
Chapter 5). Of course, Vellino is not alone in using this language and the form
of argumentation that goes with it. It is a central thread in the rationalistic

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tradition, in which all of us are immersed. The style reflected in his comments
is so pervasive in academic discourse that it is hard to recognize it for what it is:
an extremely useful, but also limited way of understanding.
We see the same concern in Stefik and Bobrow's review. For example, they
assert that "Projections of the ultimate scope of a technology should be argued
from carefully defined assumptions and sources of fundamental limits," adopting the popular model of the physical sciences and assuming that it is the only
appropriate mode of discourse. They adopt the same narrow focus on definition in trying to understand the rationalistic tradition:
Search for a definition leads to puzzlement about the rationalistic
tradition: It is a strange composite that includes one rendition of
the scientific method, some out-of-favor notions about how sentences convey meaning, the physical symbol system hypothesis in
AI, and various kinds of reductionism . . . . It is not clear to whom
they ascribe this mess.
There is a basic failure here to recognize how traditions are manifested.
They are not coherent bodies of carefully articulated theory, of the kind that
might be ascribed to individual authors and defended in a debate. In talking of
a tradition, we are not identifying and labelling a t h i n g - - a "school" or
"stance" or "position." We speak of tradition to point out how our history of
conversations (both individual and in a society) shapes our language and
thought, by providing the ground on which we work. As an analogy, consider
the tradition of " f r e e - m a r k e t economics" that is prevalent in present-day
America. One might say:
Search for a definition leads to puzzlement about free-market
economics: It is a strange composite that includes one rendition of
the functioning of pure competition, some out-of-favor notions
about how government monetary policy can guide the economy, the
welfare ideas of the New Deal, and various kinds of anticommunism and social Darwinism . . . . It is not clear to whom they ascribe
this mess.
The answer is, of course " T o n o b o d y - - a n d to all of us." We participate in a
tradition and it changes through our participation. But we do not choose it or
design it. It would be foolish to ignore the power of this particular tradition (as
distinct from a E u r o p e a n Social-Democratic, or a Chinese Communist one,
each of which would be equally complex) because it cannot be precisely
defined.
Special effort is required to recognize one's own tradition and to question
what is taken for granted within it. We have attempted to do that with the
rationalistic tradition. In its attempt to reduce everything to logical arguments
among competing ideas and beliefs, there is a constant danger of ungrounded
abstraction and a kind of "blindness." Rather than listening to language for

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what it might mean or do, one jumps eagerly into the game of "making
points," "defending positions," and searching for "mistaken beliefs." Stefik
and Bobrow complain that we " m a k e little attempt to present a balanced or
representative account of the relevant ideas." Indeed, that is not what we were
trying to do. The very idea of a "balanced or representative account" takes for
granted a broad consensus as to what constitutes the domain of "relevant"
discourse. 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.")

Stefik and Bobrow

Stefik and Bobrow are researchers who create programming techniques for use
in artificial intelligence. Their concern for the logic of arguments is in service of
their concern with inventing new theories and mechanisms. They find it
disturbing that we criticize current research without offering alternative ways to
proceed in their enterprise. If we argue that current techniques cannot do what
AI researchers have claimed they will, then what other techniques do we
advocate? Instead of answering that directly, let us examine the research
paradigm that they represent, which we characterize at length in our book (see
Chapters 7-9).
Put in a simple slogan, AI research is the quest to capture the essence of
thought and language in the form of explicit symbolic representations. The
statement by Stefik and Bobrow quoted above about "carefully defined
assumptions" is indicative of the implicit assumption that everything worth
saying or thinking can be so defined. Further, Stefik and Bobrow belong to a
predominant tradition within AI that sees little value in foundational (called
"philosophical") questions. Shortcomings of current techniques and systems are
seen as a transient failure to cover the right details and to invent the right
clever mechanisms, rather than as anything more basic. Instead of a radical
challenge to foundations, they would rather see arguments over the technical
details: "It would have been more interesting to read a critique of Grosz's
work on comprehension using the context of a discourse, or Cohen's . . . . It
would have been more useful if they gave a more balanced and comprehensive
account of current research directions."
They imply that if we focus on the details of the technology, somehow it will
all work out. They indulge in science-fiction speculations, such as " . . . newer
computer s y s t e m s . . , might acquire background that we humans bring to bear
to understand the w o r l d . . . " and "Perhaps we shall one day develop classes of
complexity for computational beings that relate in natural ways to Piaget's
stages . . . . " and they evoke images of robots from the novels of Isaac Asimov.
This kind of innocent optimism about technological achievement has been
common among AI researchers since the beginning of the discipline. We hope
that a major result of our book will be to call it into question and to open
conversation about it. In doing this, we are not trying to halt or slow the

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development of computer technology. We accept technology as a basic fact of

human activity, not inherently good or bad. We are concerned with its
direction and its grounding, and we want to increase our collective capacity of
thinking about it. Stefik and Bobrow state th~,t in our book they " . . . felt an
anti-technological bias." Clancey was listening to us more clearly when he said
"This book is anti-illusion, not anti-technology." It is dangerous to fall into
naive optimism, believing that local successes at satisfying particular technological objectives (such as building a micro-chip or a successful chess playing
program) indicate a more global success at understanding what we are doing
and where it is leading. In the face of technological illusions with negative
practical consequences, it is necessary to be anti-illusion (and anti-delusion).

Suchman
Suchman [3] has examined practical situations of computer use, applying her
training in the methods of the social sciences, particularly anthropology. Within
that discipline there has been an ongoing foundational debate about what it
means for a person from one tradition to understand or describe the
practices and languages of a different one. The Western anthropologist entering a remote native village presents an extreme case of different backgrounds
leading to different understandings and interpretations. As Suchman points
out, the "ethnomethodologists" recognize that the same problem arises in every
attempt to articulate a description of human culture and behavior. We need to
become aware of what we take for granted in our own tradition, in order not to
project it blindly onto what we observe.
The conversation called " e t h n o m e t h o d o l o g y " is akin to the one that has
gone on under the label "hermeneutics," and is much closer to our own
theories of language than to those of the rationalistic tradition. It is no surprise
that Suchman is more open to our critique and more able to recognize the ways
we use language. After noting, as Stefik and Bobrow did, that there is no
simple definition of the rationalistic tradition, she says (with apparent approval) " T h e only excuse for such gross generalization is the possibility that what is
c o m m o n is more important, for certain purposes than what is distinct. The
purposes in this case are to take off one set of eyeglasses and try on another: to
imagine what other way we might l o o k . . , at the p h e n o m e n a of cognition that
we are all trying to understand."
She sees our work as providing an "alternative v i e w " - - a way to alter our
stance as an observer, and thereby to escape from previous blindness and to
situate our understanding of computer technology in a context of human
practices. This is appropriate and it is also misleading. In a way, the ethnomethodologists are trapped in the domain they criticize. Their critique is solid,
but the response is to search for better m e t h o d o l o g i e s - - t o create precise
structures (or "views") which can provide a systematic method for dealing with
background. Suchman says:

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We need to know all these things [what the setting is, how activities
are organized, etc.] through systematic analyses. To get the latter,
we need a sound methodology for the study of situated human
practices, and the application of such study to the question of
designing tools; a need that itself delineates a major interdisciplinary research programme . . . . [Winograd and Flores] offer neither
a strong theory, nor a strong method with which to uncover or build
[the sociological foundations of design.]
While we concur with her plea that questions of computer design not be
approached from a purely technical orientation, we do not share the appeal to
methodologies--the creation of a systematic "study" that can be applied to
questions of design. As we will discuss below, we are very concerned with
developing practices for design, and in this we will use systematic
methodologies (and even analytic logic). But taking the methodologies as an
end in themselves is ultimately limiting in the same sense as the analytic
tendency to take the arguments as an end in themselves. We want to expand
our ability as observers, within a context in which we are not detached but are
engaged in the practices we ourselves observe.
The difference between detached methodology and concerned involvement
is apparent in Suchman's defense of current AI research:
While research in AI may not get us to an artificial intelligence
soon, or even ever, in principle it can still contribute to our
understanding of human intelligence, through its efforts to get
closer. Pushing an approach to the limit, like the application of
logic to the control of situated action, or the stipulation of commonsense knowledge, can clarify what remains outside of the approach's grasp.
This statement is carefully hedged ("in principle"), and as an abstract principle
of scientific methodology, it sounds fine. But what is it saying in this context? It
appears as justification for the continuation of AI research along its present
lines, even if the stated goal is not to build intelligent robots (as implicit for
Stefik and Bobrow), but to "contribute to our understanding." We reject the
implicit argument. If the basic concern is the design of technologies that are
appropriate to human settings, then we need to look for possibilities that go
outside the old directions, not spend our efforts on more sophisticated
"studies" within the existing framework.

Clancey
Clancey is clearly the reviewer most affected by the book. He tells of
transformations in his own thought and language, as he allowed himself to

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enter seriously into our discourse. It seems strange in light of all the negative
characterizations in the first two reviews that he describes the book as
"intelligent, measured, and instructive," and urges others to read it, as " . . . it
might change how you think about the world." It is too easy to dismiss this in
terms of personal preference or to make psychological speculations. The
relevant question isn't whether he likes the book, but what background he
brought to it, and how he listened within that background.
Clancey has been primarily concerned with the practical design of expert
systems and of educational techniques associated with them [1]. He has
worked with "experts" in various subject domains, trying to apply the methods
of artificial intelligence to codifying their work. Our theory fits his experience:
. . . this [our theory] explains what is so patently obvious when you
work with experts, namely that they have so much difficulty laying
out consistent networks and describing relations among concepts in
a principled w a y . . .
In reading the book he was looking for new possibilities, not for arguments:
" . . . This analysis might lead to an entirely different teaching method . . . . "
When he encountered our unfamiliar use of language (what Vellino called the
"obtuse use of English"), he saw it not as a source of confusion, but as a
potential for new interpretations:
While a cursory scan shows the book to be full of j a r g o n - thrownness, readiness-to-hand, shared background, blindness,
breakdown, commitment--these 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 . . . . This gives meaning to "things only exist through langauge." Do thrownness, readiness-to-hand, shared background,
blindness, breakdown, and commitment exist? For that matter, do
the ego and the subconscious?
Although phrases such as "retaining the message" show his grounding in the
old tradition, his use of new language throughout the review demonstrates the
degree to which it has taken root in his own understanding. The problems he
has encountered in his own attempts to apply AI to real situations are the ones
we address in our book: What are we doing with computers? How do we teach
people? How are we affected by technology? Clancey demonstrates from
personal experience that our discourse is relevant to these questions.

3. Listening to the critiques

What about our own background for listening? How do we hear the language
of the reviews for our own concerns? As suggested in various sections above,

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we did not set out to create and defend a position. We do not pretend to have
produced a definitive treatise in which one can find the "correct" synthesis.
Our concern is to participate in the generation of a theoretical basis that works
for design. As the "computer revolution" unfolds, new domains of human
action are being created and old practices are being changed. We share with
most of the reviewers a basic concern with developing "cognitive techn o l o g y " - - a computer technology that is grounded in an understanding of what
people do and how they think. But we do not share the assumption that the
background for this development is adequately grounded in the existing
academic disciplines of philosophy, linguistics and artificial intelligence. We see
the need for a radical shift, not just better accounts within the prevalent
tradition. At the same time, answers will not be provided by jumping to
hermeneutics or speech act theory as a replacement. It is just as limiting to
take these as the "right conceptual scheme." Our goal is to evoke openness to
a new discourse that will guide the technology of the future.
Much of what we say is already implicit in other parts of the larger tradition
of our society, and for that matter in some of the computer system design that
is already done. Devices such as automatic teller machines grew out of an
implicit understanding of tools for conversation, graphic user interfaces provide
"readiness-to-hand," and elements of this understanding are visible even in
programs such as operating systems. We want to design computer technology
in a more principled way. Before the theory of thermodynamics, people built
steam engines with a fair degree of success. Good designers did it well, without
explicit articulation of a theory. But with explicit theory we can do more than
improve the old designs--we can create new possibilities.
With this as our concern, we need to recognize what happens when our
writing is interpreted. We will look at three ways in which these reviews
indicate something that is potentially wrong or missing.
Failure to evoke an openness to the discourse

The first condition for language to work is that the hearer be open to enter into
a conversation with the speaker. No amount of logical or beautiful or stirring
language makes sense if it is not listened to. There is no use talking if the
backgrounds of speaker and hearer are too different to create open and serious
listening---even if the words are read, they will be too distantly reinterpreted.
Clancey says, "Ironically, the book's new view of cognition is a little scary,
making reasoning seem limited and out of our personal control." He points out
that many potential readers will react by not giving the book an open and
serious reading. It is clear from the reviews that his concern is valid. For
Vellino, at least, it is apparent that we did not evoke a commitment to go
beyond making arguments in order to understand what we were about. He says
of one section, for example, "Frankly, I do not understand what this passage
says that cannot be stated more simply by the following sentence: 'meaning

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depends on a set of background beliefs, desires, and dispositions.'" We could

enter into a discourse on why "set of background b e l i e f s . . . " is a totally
distorting way of characterizing the background we discuss. In fact, we do so
any number of times in the book. But Vellino's pre-understanding is not
sufficiently close to take that discourse seriously. Serious listening means
something different from endorsing or criticizing the logic:
. . . look first for the apparent absurdities in the text and ask
yourself how a sensible person could have written them. When you
find an answer, I continue, when those passages make sense, then
you may find that more central passages, ones you previously
thought you understood, have changed their meaning. [2, p. xii]
Stefik and Bobrow are more confusing. On the one hand, their explicit
characterizations indicate a reading that rejects what we say:
[The book is] disappointing both for those who expect a carefully
reasoned position, and those who seek an articulate account of the
way things should be . . . . What they have to say about limits
. . . has little enduring value . . . . [They] fail to characterize the
ultimate shortcomings of technology in terms of fundamentals.
At the same time, as Editor-in-Chief and Book Review Editor of the most
important theoretical journal in artificial intelligence, they have given the book
the unprecedented prominence of this set of reviews. Their actions reveal
another kind of listening, in which they too are affected in deep ways by what
we say, but cannot deal with it in terms of the rational arguments and critical
judgments they feel compelled to offer. As researchers in artificial intelligence
techniques, they sense the frustration and dissatisfaction that have beset the
field. Having seen the limitations of what they call "the current technology"
and opened themselves to deeper questions, they cannot return to the innocent
optimism of the early days. But at the same time, from their positions as senior
representatives for the field, they are called upon to defend the received
position and to pass judgment on those who cast doubts.
One senses a mood of anger in their repeated criticisms that we have not
made things sufficiently "clear" or given sufficient arguments. They experience
the disorientation that comes from questioning the grounds on which current
discourse stands, and there is a natural reaction of disagreement and defense.
Their characterizations of our writing (such as "confusing fragments of argument and rhetoric for substance") show that we did not succeed with them in
establishing the groundwork of trust that turns disorientation into an openness
to new possibilities. But they have reached the first stage of what Clancey
describes in the process of reading the book. 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.

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Suchman and Clancey were more evidently open in their listening. This is
not to say we agree with everything they write, or that they have an openness
that transcends their own background. They like all of us, are always moving in
the tumultuous space between the traditions they e m b o d y and a new understanding that is emerging. Their response is neither an argument nor a
judgment, but a participation in a conversation. Overall, the people that will
do something about our central concerns are people, like them, who work with
designing c o m p u t e r systems for real settings.

Generation of wrong interpretation

Even for a serious and open reader, a text can be written in a way that
generates a wrong interpretation. In saying that an interpretation is " w r o n g " we
are not appealing to some objective standard of truth, but recognizing that the
interpretation would lead to different grounding and consequences for action
than we anticipate. There are clearly some parts of our b o o k that have not
been uniformly effective in creating an understanding close to ours.
One example we discussed earlier was the misunderstanding of "tradition"
that led Stefik and Bobrow to treat it as something that can be defined and
justified. A m o r e troubling example (because it was misunderstood by several
of the reviewers) is our discussion of the Coordinator s, and the treatment of
c o m m i t m e n t within it as a systematic domain.
The design [of the Coordinator] is surprising in several ways. First,
it uses vocabulary associated with rich and complex human interactions (e.g., promises) with very specific technical m e a n i n g . . . [this]
seems to violate the spirit of their use of vocabulary . . . . They
ignore the lesson they preach in the rest of the book. Terms like
promise, c o m m i t m e n t and responsibility are mutually defined and
used by people in different ways depending on circumstances.
Suchman also interprets what we say as contradictory:
The concern with making things explicit, m o r e o v e r , seems in some
ways to contradict Winograd and Flores' c o m m i t m e n t to understanding things in terms of their relation to an unarticulated background of community and practice.
What has been missed is the difference between an observational account of a
domain of practices, and a space of distinctions that generates the domain.
Indeed, as Stefik and B o b r o w assert, " . . . c o m m i t m e n t and responsibility are
complex notions with social and legal dimensions." One cannot give precise
definitions for them or reduce them to any mechanical algorithm or implementation, and it was not our intention to do so. We made no claim of writing
1The Coordinator is a trademark of Action Technologies, Inc.

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about the question of responsibility, and in writing about "commitment," we

are not trying to define how the word has been used, but to create a domain of
possibilities in which it is a distinction (see Chapters 11 and 12).
As an analogy, consider commerce and finance. An arbitrary formalized
construct like "I owe the bank $4,000" in no way captures the meaning of
property, debt or value. But the systematic structure of money, expressed as
standardized conversations about finances, gives us a mutually recognized basis
on which to structure our transactions. The point of making things explicit in
the Coordinator is to generate such a mutually recognized base. When we label
a particular utterance as a "request," we make no pretense of dealing with the
full human context of requesting. We are providing the utterer and listener
with a simple way to make an explicit declaration within a mutually understood
context of practices. When someone sends a "request," everyone involved can
anticipate that it will be followed by certain potentials for further action and
breakdown, just as we can recognize that a price tag of $1.59 signals a potential
for certain business transactions.
In claiming that the distinctions embodied in the Coordinator are universal,
we are not implying a uniformity of cultural interpretation. We are identifying
a universal constitutive feature of human social activity. People ascribe to
themselves and others the capacity to make commitments--to use language in
a way that allows others to anticipate their future actions. There will be very
different cultural interpretations of who is able to make and recognize what
kinds of commitments, and how to interpret the consequences of breakdowns
when the promised action is not carried out. But there is always the basic
relation, in which one person can take seriously another's language about "I
will do . . . . "
From the standpoint of design, the issue is how to provide tools for operating
in this domain. As Clancey discusses in his Section 3.7, computers are
especially suited to dealing with the formalized structure that provides a space
in which to make explicit acts. The Coordinator is just one example. Automatic Teller Machines, mundane as they may seem, are another application.
They implement a network of possible conversational acts in which the
customer and bank employees can participate, making particular recurring
patterns explicit and "ready-to-hand" (see Chapter 12).

Missing possibilities for action

In looking for what is wrong with the book, we are at least as concerned with
what is not there as with what is there. Clancey notes that the book is "of
strong theoretical interest, but the practical implications, for example, what
expert systems might ultimately be able to do, are not clear." Suchman urges
the development of a "prototype process for design." They are not playing the
role of critic, but are inviting us (and the readers) to go further. We are at an
early stage of a new conversation, and are just beginning to reveal its

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consequences. The links have not yet been made that will carry our overall
theoretical orientation into the specific practices of designer. That is the task
for the coming years.
In particular, there is a body of practice based on theories of representation
that pervades computer system building. We would be foolish to argue that it
should be ignored or rejected, and as Clancey points out in his Section 4.4,
there is much work to be done in reinterpreting and reintegrating it. As a next
step in this process, we are now beginning a theoretical study of current
practice in building "expert systems," and have begun to elaborate a theory of
representation based on the emergence of distinctions in a linguistic domain, in
response to recurrent patterns of breakdown. Much more theoretical work
needs to be done here, in conjunction with the practical applications.
In a similar vein, we are developing a design methodology that will aid in
creating systems that are consistent with our theories of human action and
technology. A methodology is a kind of " c o a c h i n g " - - n o t a formula for
producing a result, but a set of practices that can lead to appropriate
questioning and to appropriate change. We want to shift concern away from
the computer-technology focus of the standard "system development" methods
towards a concern with the design of work and language, using computer tools
(see [4] for a first step in this research).
Finally, we are engaged in the direct development of the theory through
practice. We are gaining a great deal of experience with The Coordinator as a
commercial product with thousands of users, and are designing computer
systems that go beyond both its simple facilities and the simplistic logic of
"expert systems." As with all inventions, whether they are "right" is not a
matter for abstract debate, but of seeing how they work and what new ways of
working emerge in using them. This is true of the theory as well. Success is not
the result of fending off competing arguments, but of generating a new ground
on which argument is carried out. This kind of shift cannot be immediate--it
will be measured in decades and proceed in unpredictable ways. The coming
years of experience will be our teacher and our most exigent reviewer.
REFERENCES
1. Clancey, W.J., From Guidon to Neomycin and Heracles in twenty short lessons, A I Magazine 7
(3) (1986) 40-60.
2. Kuhn, T., The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (University
of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1977).
3. Suchman, L., Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem o f Human-Machine Communication
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 1986).
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