Affordance Types and Affordance Tokens: Are Gibson’s Affordances Trustworthy?^†

Abstract

Late in their paper on hypersets, Chemero and Turvey characterize affordances as “quicksilvery,” prone to rapid appearance and disappearance. We contrast this view with Gibson’s emphasis on the stability of affordances. We argue that this apparent discrepancy can be resolved by appeal to the distinction between affordances as indefinite abstract types and definite affordance tokens (instances of the type that share the resemblance relation). These issues will be discussed in the context of their consistency with ecological realism, where Platonic idealism is eschewed in favor of a more Aristotelian process theory. These ideas will be examined in the broader context of the domain ontology to ensure that Gibson's seminal affordance concept has its greatest theoretical utility. Finally, we develop a process theory of ontological descent by which indefinite affordance possibilities become more definite affordance potentialities and these eventuate in the most definite affordance actualizing actions.