Learning Through Interaction with Technical Objects: From the Individuality of the Technical Object to Human Individuation

Abstract

We live in a world filled with material objects, and certainly, the workplace and occupational training are no exception. The purpose of this chapter is to show the value of seriously examining the presence and contributions of technical objects within the context of occupational education and training. The concern is that when objects are freed of their status as mere artefacts – that is, as things having undergone even the slightest human transforming action – and are instead granted the status of technical object, their decisive role in work in the expansiveness of activity, as an ongoing process of growth, can be more fully understood. This chapter introduces some lessons learnt from Francophone perspectives, but also presents emerging conceptions that are opened up by notions such as appropriation and individuation. It is organised into four main parts: We first review the assumptions of the enactive approach and describe how these assumptions differ from objectivist ontology. Then, we examine the concepts of mode of existence and beings of technology to then explain our conception of technical objects. Third, we address the constitutive role of artefacts in learning and development. Finally, some consequences for educational research are discussed. Through this chapter, we aim to elaborate the following: the inaptness of the subject–object dichotomy, the heuristic nature of hybridity that makes human beings ‘technical beings’, the necessity to explore seriously the beingness of technical objects, the triple individuation that characterises the transformation of human activity, the key role of technics in defining standards and training contents, the centrality of appropriation as the fundamental transformation in the activity of actors in training and the potential value of training design as technical invention. Such a wide-ranging genetic interpretation of the relationship between humans and their environment is needed to build future adult education that engages with both social and technological transformations and their appropriation in a perspective that takes into account the omnipresence of individuation.