With the advancement and expansion in the global trade, the invention of standardized hand tools helped bridge the gap between manufacturers, suppliers and buyers of different nations. Standards are required in hand tools for quality assurance, safety, performance, size, accessory consideration and for easier construction and assembly. Due to these requirements tools are universal. For example one may own two saws by two different saw manufactures and only own one saw blade set that fits both machines.
How do standards embedded in artifacts dictate how we use them? For examples Heidegger's theory of Ready-to-Hand
ReplyDeleteHeidegger contrasts two modes of being (in addition to our own mode — being-in-the-world): present-at-hand and ready-to-hand (or alternatively, the occurant and the available (Dreyfus 1990)). The former is the mode of being consideration of an object as a physical thing present to us — or occurant, and Heidegger argues it constitutes the narrow focus of previous philosophical explorations of being. The latter is the stuff of every skilled action — available for action: the object becomes equipment, which can often be transparent in action, such that it becomes an extension of our body.
J.J. Gibson expresses this view in his proposal of an ecological psychology (in which perception and action are closely linked):
When in use, a tool is a sort of extension of the hand, almost an attachment to it or a part of the user’s own body, and thus is no longer a part of the environment of the user. [...] This capacity to attach something to the body suggests that the boundary between the animal and the environment is not fixed at the surface of the skin but can shift. More generally it suggests that the absolute duality of “objective” and “subjective” is false. When we consider the affordances of things, we escape this philosophical dichotomy. (1979, p. 41)
This post got me thinking about the emergence of standards. Taking screwdrivers, for example, did you read anything about how the sizes were selected (or evolved)? I wonder which came first, the #2 screwdriver or the #2 screw?
ReplyDeleteAs you point out with the saw blades, one other key dimension of standards is that they provide third-parties with predictability. That blade in your example might not be made by either saw company. What's more, it might be diamond-tipped or have some other feature that that the saw manufacturers don't offer on OEM blades. It seems to me that, in to addition being innovative themselves, standards provide a platform for further innovation.
I agree with Matt. Standards can and do provide a platform for innovation. Take a look at a drill that has an adjustable grip for varying sizes of drill bits. Once companies have standardized on that, entirely different companies can come in and create components for it or, later down the road, develop slightly different types of systems (such as the bits that are designed to burnish and re-groove screws that may have become stripped).
ReplyDeleteEven a more elementary example of standards, consider an electrical outlet. In the United States, three little prongs are the standard, but what plugs into them can be a whole gamut of different devices, with new ones being invented every day. Even further, taking those devices to another country (power regulation aside) is as simple as adding an adapter. I love standards. :)