Abstract
This paper explores some of the cognitive-ecological dimensions of various manual forms of tool use occurring among human agents. In particular, it clarifies what such forms reveal about the intentionality of the human mind. Integrating phenomenological, philosophical and anthropological findings and perspectives, I argue that there exists not one but at least three different forms of operative types of intentionality that are associated with three specific forms of manual technical activity. First, there is the direct type of operative intentionality that realizes itself through a human agent’s concrete bodily movements. Second, there is a materially mediated form of operative intentionality, which is required for performing those technical activities where the external tool directly extends the movements of the human body. Third, there is a more complex variety of such materially mediated intentionality, which underpins those forms of tool use where the dynamics of the tool and those of the body significantly diverge. It is suggested that the relation between these three forms of operative intentionality is best conceived in terms of a structural hierarchy.
About the author
Peter Woelert is a Research Fellow at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research focuses on the philosophy of technology with a particular focus on the epistemic, political, and phenomenological dimensions of technological activity. Recent publications include: “Technology, knowledge, governance: The political relevance of Husserl’s critique of the epistemic effects of formalization” (Continental Philosophy Review, 2013), “Idealization and external symbolic storage: The epistemic and technical dimensions of theoretic cognition” (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2012), and “Human cognition, space, and the sedimentation of meaning” (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2011). Peter also conducts research into the political dimensions of contemporary higher education governance systems.
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