Contrasting Approaches to Social Knowing

Abstract

In the course of evaluating the present contributions the basic properties of an ecological approach to social knowing are described. The exposition focuses on three major issues: (1) the importance for understanding the achievement of social meaning in considering the nature of the stimulus information as opposed to emphasizing the role of internal information processing entities, stages and/or operations; (2) the relevance for social knowing of the reciprocal relationship between perception and action; f3) the arguments advanced from an ecological perspective regarding the essentially' veridical and open, character of perceptual know ledge as against the dominant view of perception as error prone and bounded by capacity, limitations.