Abstract
What is paralyzing CSCW is the assimilation of the normative concept of plans, schemes, schedules, and similar organizational constructs with the mechanist concept of causal determination of rational action. This leaves no conceptual room for CSCW.
If calculating looks to us like the action of a machine,
it is the human being doing the calculation that is the machine.
(Wittgenstein, 1937–1944, IV § 20)
Turing’s “Machines”.
These machines are humans who calculate.
(Wittgenstein, 1946–1949, § 1096)
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Notes
- 1.
This linguistic mystique also appears when a user ‘interacts’ with the computational artifact by writing ‘commands’ that then activate an entire system of machines under the control of the computer’s operating system. It is worth noticing that such a mystique is absent when a user pushes the start button on a dish washer.
- 2.
- 3.
In fact, the philosophy of mathematics was Wittgenstein’s central concern from the Tractatus until about 1945 (when he switched his attention to another muddle: the philosophy of psychology). This is evidenced by the records of his discussions with members of the Vienna Circle (1929–1932), the manuscripts published as Philosophical Remarks (1930) and Philosophical Grammar (1931–1934), his lectures at Cambridge (1932–1933, 1939), his Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1937–1944), and of course the Philosophical Investigations (1945–1946). Indeed, it was his intention that the second volume of Philosophical Investigations should be based on the later manuscripts on mathematics.
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- 5.
It does not help that the terms ‘machine’ and ‘mechanical’ have been adopted by sociologists as a metaphor to characterize certain organizational forms such as, for example, the cold indifference and imperviousness of state bureaucracies: the ‘mechanical efficiency’ that ‘reduces every worker to a cog in this machine’ (Weber, 1909, p. 127).
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Schmidt, K. (2008). Dispelling the Mythology of Computational Artifacts. In: Cooperative Work and Coordinative Practices. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-068-1_13
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