The World I Live in

Distributed Perception: Co‐Operation between Sense‐Able, Actionable, and Accountable Semiotic Agents

“…However, contrary to the typically solipsistic and cognitive conceptualization of a single perceiving individual, this article aims to show how perception may also be a distributed, practical, and publicly available phenomenon. The argument is that people may rely and build on other agents' 1 observable perception in the pursuit of accomplishing situated activities-as noted by the deafblind writer Keller ([1903] 2003) more than a century ago. This raises two questions: how is this possible, and what is the "what more" 2 (Garfinkel 2002) that can be said about this being a "co-operative" 3 phenomenon?…”

“…Yet when two or three are left unaided, they reach out for their complements in another body, and find that they yoke easily with the borrowed team. (Keller [1903(Keller [ ] 2003 The act of perceiving the external world-die Umwelt (von Uexküll 1921)-is typically dealt with psychologically, through cognitive approaches to sense systems (e.g., Bernstein 2010), philosophically, through epistemological approaches to knowledge status (e.g., Lyons 2017) or anthropologically, through cultural approaches (Howes 2003;Ingold 2000;Pink 2011). However, contrary to the typically solipsistic and cognitive conceptualization of a single perceiving individual, this article aims to show how perception may also be a distributed, practical, and publicly available phenomenon.…”

“…Yet when two or three are left unaided, they reach out for their complements in another body, and find that they yoke easily with the borrowed team. (Keller [1903] 2003:58)…”

The Cyborg Mermaid (or: How Technè Can Help the Misfits Fit In)

“…This idea of being a "misfit" needing to be cured by technè is very present in disability studies. An early account of this idea can be found in "The world I live in", the 1908 collection of personal essays by Helen Keller [15]. From the opening line of her first essay-"I have just touched my dog"-the deaf-blind Keller makes contact, by sharing her embodied sense of touch.…”