The interdisciplinary conference features contributions from the perspectives of philosophy, sociology, psychology, science studies, economics, architecture and design. It investigates the concept ‘affordance’, its history and transformations as it traveled through different research fields and disciplines. The notion of affordance originates and is frequently identified with ecological thinking, it appears in considerations about interdependencies and interactions, about relational configurations and ontologies. Digital objects, smart materials, chemical devices, robots and the human body, geographical information systems and neuronal activity, hydrological infrastructure and landscape parks – all of these are presented and discussed as providing or being affordances. A variety of epistemological positions will be defended, different ontological claims advanced and relevant background theories invoked. There will be advocates of the notion and its heuristic value, and skeptics seeking to critique its current popularity.

Speakers include Adrian Alsmith, Marcel Boumans, Claudia Carello, Harry Collins, Karmen Franinović, Hajo Greif, Rom Harré, Harry Heft, Jannis Kallinikos, Montana Katz, Irene Klaver, Alexander Koutamanis, Peter Kroes and Maarten Franssen, Joel Krueger, Yvonne Latham, Jean-Pierre Llored, Lorenzo Magnani, Paul Micklethwaite, Jens Ortmann, Hans Jörg Rheinberger, Eran Tal, Michael Turvey, Emre Ugur and Erol Şahin, Cees van Leeuwen, Catharine Ward Thompson.

The conference is part of a DFG and ANR-funded project on the genesis and ontology of technoscientific objects: www.goto-objects.eu - it has been organized by Astrid Schwarz: schwarz[at]phil.tu-darmstadt.de - if you
plan to attend, please send a short note to Jutta Braun:
braun[at]phil.tu-darmstadt.de