The book is divided into five sections. The introduction, where legibility is introduced and articulated as a concern. The next section had to do with scientific- forestry policy in Germany hammers home the notion of simplification as a key process in modern statecraft and society. This is followed the third section which primely focuses on city planning. Here direction and appearance are added to the process of simplification. Appearance here refers to a semiotic logic where organized arrangement pertaining to aesthetic or ascribed pragmatic logic, somehow ensures superior operation. The thrust of this argument is that the lack of perceivable pattern denotes a failing or dead system. This preference for the arranged leads to the fourth section where the processes of social engineering and production are analyzed through a multitude of land cultivation cases. The engendered notions of progress or direction and preference are shown alongside the difficulties the two apparatus bring. Time and again the cases show the neglecting of knowledge gained sustain the intergenerational practice and the preference for scientific optimization. In each instance, scientific optimization cause ecological and agricultural calamity only to be rectified through a return to, or incorporation of local practices. The final section characterizes the nature of such rectification knowledge calling it Mētis. What is of note here is that such knowledge is amicable or pro-scientific analysis and method. Moreover, the irrational or unscientific assertion on semiotic appearance giving rise to function rejected for attention to possibility and relation. Mētis undemocratic and unequal in distribution. However, it is far more flexible both in its claim to authority and susceptibility in learning.
