On How We Can Act

Abstract

This paper focuses on two of the points raised in Sharrock and Coulter's (1998) critique of James Gibson's later theorizing. They argue that Gibson limited himself to an overly abstracted and unified notion of `perception', and that his theory of affordances involved an overly restrictive claim about the `objects' of perception. We suggest an alternative reading of the theory of affordances, namely as a challenge to the traditional theoretical schema of `perception'. Gibson's last book, we argue, is primarily about agency, about how we can act. We accept Sharrock and Coulter's point that ecological psychology needs to find a place for `concepts' in its account of human life, but we question their apparent a priori assumption that human `perceptual activities' are entirely `rule-governed'. The degree and manner in which concepts figure in human life is indeed a matter for investigation.