Hermeneutics and Representation

A common topic in CSCW is the fit between an information system and the people whose activity it is intended to support. The static and objectifying abstractions at the heart of mainstream information systems are often contrasted with idealized concepts such as the 'common information space' where there is fluid adaptation to suit each user, community and context. While such discussion is common, implementation is rare. This paper points out similarities on this discourse with that of semiology and hermeneutics, and looks toward adaptive system design in accord with such theory. Such representational adaptation approaches dialogical communication, where breakdowns in meaning and understanding are debated and resolved, each speaker acts toward an explicit audience in a shared context of use, and these actions can be rich in ostensive and indexical reference. This contrast is similar to philosophical hermeneutics' comparison of speech and writing. Ricoeur characterizes writing with four traits of distanciation. The author's meaning is inscribed in the text, a fixed, finite and external representation. The text is dissociated from the mental intention of the author, can only display non–ostensive references, and, instead of a known audience directly apparent to a speaker, the range of potential readers is unlimited. These four traits taken together constitute the text's 'objectivity'. We see information systems' formal representations as semiological texts, whose design necessarily involves distanciation. This leads to variation in their normative effect, ranging from script–like sequentiality of actions to flexibly interpreted, map–like resources for situated action. According to Gadamer, interpretation is most usefully seen as an interaction between the activity, context and prejudice (the 'horizon') of the reader, and the content, context and background of the information i.e. the horizon provided by the text. Every use of a text constitutes an interpretive act; all activity is interpretation. Such interpretation is based on pre–understanding, pre–judgement or prejudice, which includes assumptions implicit in the language that the person uses. That language in turn is learned through experiences of interpretation. The individual and his or her prejudice are changed through the use of language, and the language changes through activity. This endless process of seeing the part in and through the whole is the hermeneutic circle. What kind of representations might be involved here? Hermeneutics builds on structuralist and post-structuralist linguistics, where a relative system of symbols is proposed as the core representational resource for activity and interpretation. Symbols form a configuration, whereby one interprets …