Analyze a Skilled Activity

Can skill be captured in rules? The question has run through philosophy, psychology, and artificial intelligence for more than half a century. One answer holds that expertise is knowledge of rules and facts, applied faster and more reliably with practice. Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus argued the opposite: beginners follow rules, but experts respond directly to situations, often unable to say what rule, if any, they're following (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986). Hubert Dreyfus then used the same argument against symbolic artificial intelligence, which tried to reduce intelligent behavior to facts and rules (Dreyfus 1992). The debate didn't end with him. John McDowell argued that even absorbed, expert coping involves conceptual capacities, and the exchange between them sharpened what's at stake (Schear 2013).

Professional Context

Imagine you're a researcher in expertise studies, sport science, or the philosophy of skill. You're drafting the conceptual framework for a study of experienced practitioners. Your panel is mixed: philosophers on one side, empirical researchers on the other. The empirical researchers know rule-based and information-processing models of expertise well. Some will doubt that a first-person analysis can identify anything worth measuring.

Your task is to write a phenomenological analysis of one skilled activity that shows what those models leave out. It has to identify concrete features of skill, such as the way tools withdraw, the way a breakdown lights up the whole activity, and the way mood and others' presence shape performance. Your panel must be able to recognize these features as real and, in principle, study them.

What You'll Create

You'll write a 1,000–1,500 word essay analyzing one skilled activity you practice. The essay has five components:

• the activity in absorbed use, with its equipment and in-order-to relations
• one breakdown and what it revealed
• the mood or attunement in which the activity is carried out
• either its lived time (Bergson's duration) or its perceptual organization (figure–ground)
• how your body is lived under others' gaze or as a situation (Sartre or Beauvoir)

Skills in Action

The project draws several analyses together. The tool analysis describes absorbed use and breakdown. The analysis of attunement shows how the activity matters and what it makes salient. Bergson's duration (Bergson [1889] 1913, ch. 2) or Gestalt figure–ground describes how the activity unfolds in time or organizes perception. Sartre's look (Sartre [1943] 2018, pt. 3, ch. 1) or Beauvoir's body as situation (Beauvoir [1949] 2010, vol. 1, pt. 1, ch. 1) adds the social dimension. Each analysis checks the others. A breakdown, for example, often changes the mood, the lived time, and your awareness of being watched, all at once.

Portfolio Value

A finished essay is a research writing sample: a worked conceptual framework showing that first-person analysis can identify features of skill that rule-based models miss. It's the kind of text that could open the framework section of a study of expertise, support a proposal for mixed-methods research on skill, or show a reviewer that your phenomenological claims are disciplined and testable.

References

• Beauvoir, Simone de. (1949) 2010. The Second Sex. Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  • Free: None.
  • Publisher: Penguin Random House (Vintage paperback)
  • Free companion: SEP, "Simone de Beauvoir" (Burke), §7
• Bergson, Henri. (1889) 1913. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by F. L. Pogson. London: George Allen.
  • Free: Project Gutenberg 056852 (public domain; ch. 2 is "The Multiplicity of Conscious States: The Idea of Duration")
• Dreyfus, Hubert L. 1992. What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Free: None for the book; the original statement of the critique is free: Dreyfus, "Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence" (RAND, 19650
  • Publisher: MIT Press
• Dreyfus, Hubert L., and Stuart E. Dreyfus. 1986. Mind over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer. New York: Free Press.
  • Free: None for the book; the skill model's first statement is free: Dreyfus and Dreyfus, "A Five-Stage Model of the Mental Activities Involved in Directed Skill Acquisition" (1980), DTIC
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1943) 2018. Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by Sarah Richmond. London: Routledge.
  • Free: None. Richmond prints the French pagination, so learners using the older Barnes translation can cross-reference.
  • Publisher: Routledge · less expensive US paperback: Washington Square Press
  • Free companion: SEP, "Jean-Paul Sartre" (Renaudie), §4.3
• Schear, Joseph K., ed. 2013. Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell–Dreyfus Debate. London: Routledge.
  • Free: None.
  • Publisher: Routledge

Deliverable Overview

You'll write one essay: a phenomenological analysis of one skilled activity you know well, 1,000–1,500 words long. The essay has five required components, and component 4 offers a choice between two options:

1. The activity in absorbed use, tracing its equipment and in-order-to relations
2. One breakdown, analyzed for what it revealed
3. The mood or attunement in which the activity is carried out
4. Either the activity's lived time (Bergson's duration) or its perceptual organization (figure–ground)
5. How the body is lived under others' gaze or as a situation, drawing on Sartre or Beauvoir

Use a section heading for each component so your analysis is easy to follow. If you cite sources, use Chicago author-date citations and include a References list. The References list doesn't count toward the word limit. Citations are optional.

Detailed Requirements

1. Absorbed Use and the Equipmental Context

Describe the activity while it's going well. Show what you attend to, such as the task, the terrain, or the patient, and how the tools withdraw. Then trace at least two in-order-to relations: this tool is for that, which is for something further. End the chain with a for-the-sake-of-which, a possibility of your own being that the activity serves, such as being a runner, a good cook, or a trusted clinician.

2. A Breakdown

Describe one moment when a tool was damaged, missing, or in the way. Name the mode: conspicuousness (damaged or unusable), obtrusiveness (missing), or obstinacy (in the way). Then describe what the breakdown revealed. Show how the tool turned into an object with properties, present-at-hand, and how the wider context of the activity came into view.

3. Mood or Attunement

Describe the mood in which you carry out the activity. It could be focused calm, pleasurable tension, dread before a performance, or the flat evenness of routine. Describe it as a way the activity and its world show up: what stands out, what matters, and what seems possible. Don't describe it only as a private feeling.

4. Lived Time or Perceptual Organization (Choose One)

• Option A: Lived time. Describe the activity as duration: how earlier moments carry into and color later ones, as notes do in a melody (Bergson [1889] 1913, ch. 2). Contrast this with the activity as a timed sequence of units, such as splits, steps, or minutes, and say what the timed version leaves out.
• Option B: Perceptual organization. Describe how the activity organizes your perceptual field into figure and ground. What stands out as figure, what recedes as ground, and how does the organization shift as the activity changes?

Choose the option that fits your activity best. You don't need to address the other.

5. The Social Body

Describe how your body is lived under others' gaze, or as a situation. Draw on Sartre's look and at least one of his three dimensions of the body (Sartre [1943] 2018, pt. 3, chs. 1–2), or on Beauvoir's body as situation (Beauvoir [1949] 2010, vol. 1, pt. 1, ch. 1). You may use your own experience or a described or hypothetical situation, such as a coach watching, an audience, or a supervisor. You don't need to disclose anything you'd rather keep private.

Success Criteria

Your essay meets the requirements when it:

• Describes absorbed use and traces at least two in-order-to relations
• Analyzes a breakdown, names its mode, and says what it revealed about the wider context
• Describes the mood as disclosing how the activity matters, not only as a feeling
• Applies either Bergson's duration or Gestalt figure–ground accurately to the activity
• Applies Sartre's look or three dimensions of the body, or Beauvoir's body as situation, accurately
• Grounds every component in concrete moments of the activity, rather than general theory

Quality Indicators

Adequate work includes all five components, names the breakdown mode correctly, and uses each thinker's concepts accurately.

Excellent work does more. It shows the shift from ready-to-hand to present-at-hand at the moment of breakdown. It links the mood to what the activity makes salient. Its components connect: a breakdown changes the mood, the lived time, or the awareness of being watched, and the essay shows how. Throughout, it stays with what the activity is like from within, rather than explaining it with neural or cognitive mechanisms.

Step-by-Step Guidance

Step 1: Choose an activity you practice regularly. Pick something you do yourself and know well enough to have experienced breakdowns. A narrow activity works better than a whole profession: a morning run rather than athletics, or making a risotto rather than cooking.

Step 2: Do it, or recall a recent session vividly, and take notes. Attend to what you notice and what withdraws. Jot down what stands out, how time passes, what you feel, and when you're aware of others. Don't theorize yet.

Step 3: Map its equipment and purposes. List the tools. For each, write what it's in-order-to, and follow the chain until you reach what the activity is for in your life.

Step 4: Recall a breakdown. Choose one specific moment when something was damaged, missing, or in the way. Note what became visible that hadn't been.

Step 5: Describe its mood. Ask how the activity shows up when it's going well, and how the world looks in that mood.

Step 6: Choose duration or figure–ground for component 4. If the activity's rhythm and flow stand out, choose duration. If what you see or hear, and what fades, stands out, choose figure–ground.

Step 7: Describe a moment of being watched or situated. Recall a time someone watched you do the activity, or consider how your social situation shapes it. A hypothetical case is fine.

Step 8: Revise out causal and mechanistic language. Reread for words such as "brain," "muscle memory," "processing," "reflex," and "triggered." Rewrite each as a description of how things showed up.

Resources

• Component checklist. Before you finish, confirm that your essay has these headed sections:
  1. Absorbed use and the equipmental context
  2. A breakdown
  3. Mood or attunement
  4. Lived time or perceptual organization
  5. The social body
• Annotated exemplar excerpt. The excerpt below shows a strong breakdown analysis for a different activity from yours: sailing a small dinghy. Use it as a model of naming the mode and showing what was revealed, not as a template to copy.

Close-hauled in a building breeze, I'm not aware of the mainsheet in my hand. I'm aware of the telltales, the heel of the boat, and the gust darkening the water upwind. Then, as I go to ease out, the sheet won't run: it's jammed in the cleat. The rope is suddenly there as a thing, frayed and stiff, twisted round the cleat's teeth. That's conspicuousness: the equipment is unusable, and it stands out. But it isn't only the rope I notice. The whole situation lights up at once: the gust arriving, the boat heeling past what I can hold, and the fact that the afternoon's sailing was for the sake of being someone who can handle a boat alone.

Annotations: The excerpt starts with absorbed use, attending to the wind and not the rope. It names the mode correctly: the sheet is unusable, not missing or merely in the way. It shows the shift to presence-at-hand ("frayed and stiff"). And it shows the wider context lighting up, all the way to a for-the-sake-of-which. It uses no mechanistic vocabulary.

• Free refreshers.
  • The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Heidegger covers being-in-the-world, equipment, and attunement (Wrathall 2025, §2).
  • The entry on Bergson covers duration and spatialized time (Moulard-Leonard 2025).
  • The entry on Sartre covers the look and the body (Renaudie 2026, §4.3).
  • Bergson's Time and Free Will is free in full on Project Gutenberg. Chapter 2 is the key chapter for Option A (Bergson [1889] 1913).
• Your own notes. You may draw on any notes or journal entries you've written as you worked through these ideas.

Tips and Common Pitfalls

• Listing theory without applying it. Defining readiness-to-hand does little. Showing a specific tool withdrawing in a specific moment does a lot.
• Describing tools as objects rather than in use. "My running shoes are lightweight and cushioned" describes them as present-at-hand. "I don't feel the shoes until the gravel starts" describes them in use.
• Treating mood as private feeling. "I felt nervous" is a report. "Before the concert, every page of the score looked like a place to fail" shows the world disclosed by a mood.
• Choosing an activity you don't do yourself. You need first-person access to absorption and breakdown. Choose something you practice.

References

• Beauvoir, Simone de. (1949) 2010. The Second Sex. Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  • Free: None.
  • Publisher: Penguin Random House (Vintage paperback)
  • Free companion: SEP, "Simone de Beauvoir" (Burke), §7
• Bergson, Henri. (1889) 1913. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by F. L. Pogson. London: George Allen.
  • Free: Project Gutenberg 056852 (public domain; ch. 2 is "The Multiplicity of Conscious States: The Idea of Duration")
• Moulard-Leonard, Valentine. 2025. "Henri Bergson." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman. https\://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/.
• Renaudie, Pierre-Jean. 2026. "Jean-Paul Sartre." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman. https\://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/.
• Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1943) 2018. Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by Sarah Richmond. London: Routledge.
  • Free: None. Richmond prints the French pagination, so learners using the older Barnes translation can cross-reference.
  • Publisher: Routledge · less expensive US paperback: Washington Square Press
  • Free companion: SEP, "Jean-Paul Sartre" (Renaudie), §4.3
• Wrathall, Mark. 2025. "Martin Heidegger." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman. https\://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/.