SOCIAL AFFORDANCES

Modern disciplines both reflect and perpetuate a basic dualism. The na tural sciences deal with a 'material world', abstracted from human con cerns, while the social sciences have, in their turn, constructed a wo rld of 'agents' disconnected from material things. James Gibson's theo ry of affordances was an attempt to counter this deep schism in modern thought by emphasizing the material conditions of human activity. He came to see that psychology, as traditionally conceived, was itself a creation of dualistic thinking. Yet, Gibson failed to engage in a corr esponding exploration of the sociality of the material. This paper exa mines the reasons why Gibson retained a dualism of the natural and soc io-cultural in his theory; points to some of the ways in which the con cept of affordances should be socialized; and, finally, raises the que stion: what would ecological psychology stand to lose if all affordanc es were social?