The Concept of Object and its Relation to Human Thinking: Some Misunderstandings Concerning the Connection between Object-Orientation and Human Thinking

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Carlsson, Sten | Christiansson, Benneth

Affiliations: Division for Information Technology, Karlstad University, S-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden. E-mail:Sten.Carlsson@kau.se, Benneth.Christiansson@kau.se

Abstract: All throughout the computer science community object-orientation is accepted as being built upon the same basic concepts that human beings use to apprehend reality. This misconception, as we think, is what we focus on in this paper. To show this we analyse two well-recognised object-oriented systems development methods. We try to pinpoint in what way these methods do not correspond to the way human beings apprehend reality in terms of objects. We show that the methods do not use the concepts of object or class in a manner that corresponds to the way human beings use them to apprehend reality. Furthermore the method-creators do not separate the notion of an object and its representation in a model. We also suggest a better adaptation of the searching-for-objects model based on how human beings apprehend reality. When analysing, one should focus on the purpose of the actions and the two different modes with which an object can be treated: present-at-hand and readiness-to-hand. This will increase the conformity between object-orientation and the way human beings apprehend reality.

Keywords: object-orientation, systems development, human-thinking

DOI: 10.3233/INF-1999-10201

Journal: Informatica, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 147-160, 1999