Human Enactment Of Intelligent Technologies: Towards Metis And Mindfulness

“There is non-communicable knowledge ― and a manager, engineer, or medical specialist should know when and why it happens. As David Holford writes in his book (p. 71): ‘/ … /cognition depends constitutively on the living body, understood as an autonomous system. The basic idea is that cognition should not be understood as a capacity for deriving world-models, which might then provide a database for thinking, planning and problem-solving. Rather, cognitive processes are viewed as being closely entwined with action, and as such, have the capacity of generating structure, i.e. of ‘enacting’ a world. In summary, a paradigmatic book!”

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Albert Lejeune, PhD
Cognitive Informatics, PhD Business Administration
Director of the Cognitive Science Institute
Human Sciences Faculty, UQAM

“In my opinion, the book proposed by W David Holford ― Human Enactment of Intelligent Technologies ― will find a captivated audience. David Holford situates intelligent technologies with the most relevant philosophers on the subject, while at the same time demonstrating his keen knowledge of AI.

… To reach this aim, he discusses the role of mètis thought and behaviour first brought forward by the ancient Greeks … It is a cunning form of intelligence which eludes explicit formulation, conceptual analysis, or theoretical exposition. Mètis is an embodied power which opens the way towards a beneficial solution. Thus, David Holford highlights situational intelligence, the question of framing and relevance, and finally, addresses in a particularly right way, the question of representation.In this manner, he manages to inquire into creation and the creation of novelty, as Cornelius Castoriadis did in his time. I am very happy that such a book could be produced.”

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Claude Paraponaris
Professor of Innovation Management
Aix Marseille University

W David Holford, PhD, P Eng. is a professional engineer and Professor of Management at the University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada. He has published articles in several prominent journals including the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Knowledge Management, Knowledge Management Research & Practice, Futures, and Prometheus. He has published books in the fields of Management as well as Knowledge Management, his most recent being Managing Knowledge in Organizations: A Critical Pragmatic Perspective. His current research focuses on understanding the nature of tacit, embodied, and embedded expertise within various professions and, more specifically, the organizational challenges in identifying and retaining it within various digital work environments implementing ‘intelligent’ technologies. His fields of expertise include management, organizational sense-making, knowledge theory, phenomenology, and science, technology, and society. Prior to his academic career, he worked in the aerospace industry for 20 years (Pratt and Whitney Canada), assuming engineering and management roles of increasing responsibility.