Nailing my theses to the door

Having enjoyed Phd design for some time now, it occurs to me that all 
the various discussions and threads notwithstanding, I feel strongly 
that there are a number of fundamental problems to do with the project 
of this list -to consider what the nature of a Phd in design should be 
and related issues- which remain, for me at any rate, unresolved. This 
may of course simply be my inaptitude for appreciating the force of 
arguments put -or it may be there are real problems.

I am therefore going to ‘nail my theses to the church door’ and see what 
reaction they get. (All Lutheran analogy starts and finishes with this 
image as far as I am concerned -I don’t want to get into any discussions 
about who represents the Church, the Pope, the Reformation, 
Counter-reformation etc!!)

There are ten of these ‘problems’, which I put forward as debating 
points, or questions, not truth claims.

I do not necessarily propose to defend any of them, but in each case, 
having stated the thesis as straightforwardly as I can, I will then give 
the supporting rationale.

They are in no particular order, and indeed are a fairly random 
collection, but all I think related to a unifying theme . . .

Problem 1
We do not appear to have a satisfactory definition of design.

I am aware that we have, both in the list and in the literature of 
design theory many definitions of design. However, unless I have missed 
something, these all appear to me to suffer from serious defects.
I am unconvinced by ‘essentialist’ definitions of design or design 
thinking -eg, “the ‘essence’ of design is this or that”. I don’t think 
anyone proposes ‘spiritual’ essences, but even using the term 
metaphorically, it implies that design as a concept and practice has 
some kind of ‘natural’ core or centre, discoverable by investigation or 
thought. I posit that that is at least an open question.
I am also unconvinced by definitions which attempt to define a boundary 
condition of some sort -such boundaries usually fade and blur under 
close scrutiny . . .
Some definitions of design identify it as some formula to do with human 
creative/purposive activity. Again, these leave me unsatisfied because 
the elements of human thought and activity identified are usually so 
ubiquitous as to render the category of design meaninglessly universal 
-and quite arbitrary in its chosen boundaries.
There has been an interesting recent thread about design as process. 
However, most process oriented definitions of design I have encountered 
speak of it as if it were an aspect of individual psychology taking 
place in a social and economic vacuum. The lack of reference to social 
economic and political contexts of design I feel to be a crippling 
defect in a great amount of theory.
I apologise for not giving specific examples of these kinds of 
definition, hopefully I have depicted them clearly enough for readers to 
identify their own chosen examples.
I am not setting out here to ‘argue to the death’ with anyone who might 
find some of the kinds of definitions mentioned quite satisfactory -I 
merely would like to know if others share my misgivings, or if not, why 
not?
I am refraining from giving my own views on the problem for the moment, 
as I am engaged in writing about the subject at some length, and don’t 
want to overburden this post with detail. Which is not to say I refuse 
to confess if asked . . .

Problem 2
Can the academic study of design really be carried out within a 
scientific paradigm?

Ken of course has argued very persuasively that it can, and should, both 
in his posts to this list and in papers published externally. While 
feeling the force of many of his arguments, I remain anxious about some 
consequent issues, or sub-problems:

-If we cannot define design very effectively, its a bit difficult to 
have a science of it . . . but that’s not in itself necessarily fatal, 
the definition of life is elusive, but we have plenty of science of it. 
Nevertheless, it worries life-scientists . . .

-I suspect that a definition of design which would satisfy me would 
define it as the sort of subject which can be a science only in a sense 
analogous to ‘Political Science’ or ‘Economic Science’. There has been 
some discussion along these lines recently in the list. In other words, 
while scientific knowledge might form part of it, it is more like a 
Humanities subject -one in which the determination of fact is mediated 
through interpretation, with an acceptance that the facts will always 
contain some element of ambiguity. This of course, is an aspect of a 
much larger nest of problems . . .

Problem 3
The philosophy of scientific method is in crisis.

Of course, if true, not simply a problem for PhD Design, but for all 
science-related academic work. This crisis seems to have two aspects, 
one internal, one external:

1, The tradition of philosophy of science itself has reached something 
of an impasse with Feyerabend (I apologise to list members for dragging 
him in again!). Again, this may be my own inadequacy, but I am unable to 
see past his arguments that there is no sustainable basis for claiming 
any special epistemological privelige for ‘scientific method’. It may be 
that someone has come up with a sizzling rebuttal, if anyone knows who 
I’d be glad to hear of it. (Please note, this does not mean to say that 
I or Feyerabend do not believe that science as practiced cannot be an 
efficatious and predictive guide to phenomena, merely that the claimed 
rational basis justifying its superiority in this respect does not 
appear to stand up.)

2, Feyerabend’s efforts are parallelled by those postmodern critics who 
challenge the objectivity of science. Now this of course is a sore point 
with many people, so i want to make some things about my own position 
clear here. First, while feeling the force of many of their arguments, I 
do not necessarily wish to identify with, defend or condone every 
postmodern epistemological or philosophical position. I am aware that 
the so called ‘Science Wars’ have gone dormant of late, but I personally 
do not feel that either side scored a decisive victory, the issues 
remain in the balance.
While this situation persists, whatever side of the question one 
personally favours, unless one is substantially partisan (eg discounts 
the arguments of the opposite camp substantially), one cannot, I think 
refer to or rely on scientific method or methods as a ‘given’ without 
some serious reservations.
Let me repeat, that in holding these reservations myself, I do not deny 
the possibility, efficacy or value of scientific method as generally 
understood, -but thats another very long story. The issue I raise here 
is, how many other list members also feel that scientific method and its 
particular kinds of truth claim and justification are at least under 
severe question?

Problem 4
There is a problem in contemporary Western philosophy with the status of 
knowledge generally.

(. . . of which the problem of scientific knowledge is a major sub-set.) 
In fact I would go so far as to say that opinion on this, and many other 
lists is roughly divided between those who ‘problematise’ the status of 
knowledge, and those who do not. This is a necessarily crude 
distinction, and some people fall on both sides at different points in 
their arguments, but I suggest it is broadly true?
Here we are again in territory which list discussion has entered on many 
occasions, that of epistemology. Personally, I think epistemology is 
another name for quicksand, so my concern is to see where the experts 
are putting their feet rather than to blaze any trails myself. From the 
vantage point of the bank it seems that this particular crisis has been 
developing since at least Kant, if not Berkely, and shows no sign of 
calming down yet. In such a situation I suggest that people wishing to 
establish a qualification in high-quality knowledge generation had 
better tread very carefully indeed. An example of such carefulness which 
struck me as particularly good, but which did not seem to attract much 
attention at the time was posted to the list a few weeks ago:

Jan Verwijnen in his post of Tue Mar 26, 2002 describes the ideas of 
Denzil and Lincoln 1998, on good practice in qualitative research:

. . .they conclude that “qualitative research has become a set of 
interpretive practices, which cannot privilege a single method over any 
other. As a site of discourse or discussion it has become increasingly 
difficult to define and has no theory or paradigm that is distinctly its 
own as it crosscuts disciplines, fields, and subject matter.” I believe 
that exactly the same could be said for design research.

Therefore (in order to have a bearing) the research process has to be 
defined by what they call three "interconnected, generic activities" - I 
would prefer the term meta-method. Meant are the interconnections 
between ontology, epistemology and methodology. This means that every 
research and particularly every doctoral thesis will have to answer the 
question of how its specific research subject relates to the world of 
theory and knowledge (epistemology), which needs to be based on a 
statement of what the world must be like (ontology) in order for us to 
have knowledge of it. Thus the researcher approaches the world (being in 
the world) with a set of ideas, an ontological framework that specifies 
a set of questions (epistemology) that are then examined (methodology, 
analysis) in specific ways (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998). In other words in 
every research there is always an ontological perspective which sees or 
encapsulates (our being in) the world in a specific sense and there is 
an epistemological position which suggests that knowledge or evidence of 
the world can be generated by observing, participating or interpreting 
certain sources. Because of a lack of a clear theory or paradigm in 
design it is important to be conscious about this perspective and 
position.

I would suggest that this would be good practice for all research . . .

Problem 5

The problem of incommensurability

The historic shift from what might be broadly categorised as Modernist 
to Post-modernist perspectives creates a discontinuity between two 
mutually incompatible paradigms of knowledge which makes discussion and 
debate difficult.

I am thinking here of  Feyerabend’s discussion of the problem of 
incommensurability, (Feyerabend 1975 p271 and thereabouts) It is of 
course a problem which forms the subject matter of much postmodern 
critical theory in the humanities. I refer once more to Feyerabend in 
this case because he discusses it with specific reference to the theory 
of science.

For a discussion list such as Phd Design this has some interesting 
consequences. If it is true, then it means that issues cannot be 
resolved by discussion within a shared framework of rationality . . .

Problem 6
Problem of hermeneutic method.
This is a recent problem in its specifics, but I think is an important 
and symtomatic sub-problem of the above. Hermeneutic method as described 
in a recent post by Ken Friedman, appears to discount the idea that 
there may be unbridgeable gaps between our world-view and that of an 
author we seek to understand. It also appears to assume that the author 
has a unified identity of which the ‘voice’ is unproblematically an 
expression. I await correction on both the foregoing observations. 
Meanwhile however, here are my reservations: This assumption  of a 
verifiable authorial voice has been put under severe question, indeed 
revealed to be an assumption, by that strand of literary criticism that 
posits “the death of the author”. (apologies for lack of references 
-time presses.). I would also suggest that Foucault’s “The Order of 
Things” (1970) is an interesting, if rather long-winded, attempt not to 
cross the gaps, but to get a sense of the nature of the differences 
between incommensurable ‘epistemes’ as he calls them in western thought 
of the last few hundred years -and thus to reveal the dangers of 
attempting to retrieve the meaning of earlier authors whose ontology may 
be incommensurate with our own -and indeed, irretrievable in anything 
other than a vague sense.
Note the problem here is not that we cannot cross the boundary between 
one world view and another -as say someone gaining or losing religious 
faith does. Nor is it the case that there can be no translation of ideas 
or information from one context to the other -but translation will 
inevitably lose something, or do a violence to one or the other, just as 
in languages. . .

Problem 7
Problem of the rejection of postmodernism as leading to ‘nihilistic 
relativism’

This is a common criticism levelled by those who reject postmodern 
theoretical perspectives, or at any rate, prefer to keep them at arm’s 
length. Perceiving that the logical formulae and cultural assumptions by 
which their world views and practices are justified are undercut, they 
assume it is no longer possible, in a postmodern view to assert any 
moral or rational justification for the superiority of any theory or 
practice.

This is usually the point at which the discussion reaches stalemate. I 
would suggest that there are some further observations that can usefully 
be made:
1. The theories and practices of those who level this criticism are not 
as logical as they like to pretend. (Feyerabend again)
2. Logic and rationality remain as useful and efficatious as ever they 
were, -within the structure of assumptions about knowledge, the world 
and the subjects relation to it on which they are based. Indeed there 
can be many mutually incommensurable ‘logics’ each perfectly justified 
within their own ‘episteme’
3. The postmodern perspective involves the recognition that it is no use 
beating an opponent over the head with a weapon of argument constructed 
according to principles in which the opponent does not believe, or which 
make no sense in terms of his or her worldview.
4. Acceptance of this therefore does not mean a slide in to cynical 
nihilistic anything goes relativism, or a despairing abandonment of 
one’s own cherished virtues and principles. It involves instead a 
recognition of the need to respect the existence of other world-views 
incommensurable with ones own, and to acknowledge that in arguing the 
superiority of one’s own position, rhetoric is probably going to be at 
least as important as logic, and that holding ones own views may be more 
a matter of personal moral, cultural and aesthetic choices than of 
universal truths.  If it means abandoning anything it means abandoning 
an unthinking assumption that any position arrived at, no matter how 
superior, can ever be the right answer for all people all the time 
everywhere, and that positions and perceptions are contingent, though 
none the less valuable for that. -This has been a theme of the recent 
interesting thread on ‘timeless design’.
The search for truth becomes a creative one -the discovery what truth 
could be, not what truth 'is'.
I am preaching too much . . . what do you think?

Problem 8
Problem of ‘social constructionism’

The concept of the social construction of reality in general and of 
particular concepts, is of course a key part of postmodern theory. I 
acknowledge that Ken Friedman has, (in a post I have not had time to 
track down yet -sorry!) given fairly short shrift to ‘social 
constructionism’. My profound disagreement with his interpretation of 
the history here will have to wait until such time as I dig deep enough 
into the archives to unearth it, meanwhile, my point is that much 
discussion on PhD Design seems to go on without any very clear context 
as to whether the authors beleive in the idea, or have even considered 
its possible implications for their discourse: the category of design 
itself would of course be first up on the slab for investigation . . .

Problem 9
The problem of reading
I must admit that when some time ago Ken made the observation that not 
enough reading goes on in the field of academic design studies, a small 
cheer went up in my heart. I have much sympathy with this criticism, 
although from a different perspective. However, i think it cannot be 
permitted to stand alone as a criticism without some further 
observations:
1. It is a fact that (outside of PhD Design!) when designers do engage 
in theory it is often for the purpose of discovering new creative 
directions. Whether they have understood the theory as originally 
intended, or applied it correctly is often a rather secondary 
consideration. (I would tentatively suggest “Learning from LasVegas” 
(Venturi, Scott-Browne and Izenour, 1972) as an example of this sort of 
thing. Consequently there is perhaps, in the culture of design an 
instrumental and non-rational relationship to theory which interferes 
with and complicates academic approaches. (Although Feyerabend would say 
that the rational pure academic approach is equally riddled with 
irrationalism and inconsistency but thats another story . . .)
2. Reading generally is becoming the site of a growing problem in 
academic practice. New technologies of dissemination, the passage of 
time, increasing specialisation and the pressures of funding regimes on 
academic publication mean that the ‘literature’ relevant to any given 
subject is becoming enormously inflated, fragmented and repetitious. The 
traditional approach to research of commencing with an exhaustive 
literature search becomes more and more onerous or even downright 
impractical. Furthermore, there are political and social issues here. I 
am blessed with reasonably good access to the literature, many are not. 
I have good access, but rather restricted time, and somewhat limited 
stamina. If I were to decline to engage in discourse because I have not 
read say, Dilthey, for example it would be all up with me as an 
academic. A standard of academic practice therefore which insists on 
exhaustive knowledge of the literature would rapidly kill all meaningful 
activity. Does it particularly matter if someone repeats what someone 
else has said? It will be in a different context and a different voice 
and may yield different insights. Moreover, one person’s idea of which 
texts are relevant will always differ from another’s and no one can read 
everything. I would suggest therefore that knowledge of any given corpus 
of literature as a test of academic probity is not appropriate, the test 
should be the researcher’s curiosity and willingness to make interesting 
connections. One day I will hopefully get round to Dilthey and decide 
whether he is relevant or interesting -to me. Of course it may be that 
there is no disagreement on this point -but i think it needs to be 
debated explicitly as part of the context of contemporary PhD activity.

Problem 10
The problem of defining what constitutes rightful academic and scholarly 
practice in the 21st century is no easy one.

And indeed it is probably not possible or desirable to arrive at a 
single totalising paradigm, rather i suggest we should recognise and 
respect multiple models of ‘scholarship’. This is not to say we cannot 
pursue excellence and self-consistency within each paradigm. We should 
also remember However, that the most valuable contribution of 
scholarship is to break down and break out of existing paradigms and 
frameworks and to forge new ones.


Am I in enough trouble yet?


Regards to all
Andrew