Abstract

Reviews the book, Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores. In Understanding Computers and Cognition, Winograd and Flores have attempted to provide a new foundation for the design of computer systems, a foundation significantly different from that on which most contemporary work in computer design rests. Their development is based on a deconstruction and analysis of the accepted rationalistic tradition, and the presentation of a hermeneutical alternative. These contrasting viewpoints are effectively applied to a review of current theory and practice in the design of intelligent computer systems, and culminate in suggestions for redirecting future design efforts. Winograd and Flores accomplish their stated purpose by ultimately producing an effective argument for such redirection, but more than this, they provide a model argument for similar redirection in the human sciences, where the rationalistic tradition is just as pervasive, and at times as counterproductive, as in the field of computer design. 2012 APA, all rights reserved)