"Oh that my words were now written!
Oh that they were printed in a book!
That they were graven with an iron pen on lead
Or inscribed in rock forever."

-- Job 10:24


Dear Colleagues,

Andrew King offers interesting and challenging issues for debate.

Andrew's theses identify some of the major issues under consideration.

Several of these were addressed to me. I am in the middle of a few
deadlines right now. Except for posting a few notes that I have been
polishing over the past few weeks, I will not be addressing major
issues for a while. I must wait to respond.

Many of these issues interest me and I will respond when I have time
to give these notes the thought they deserve. I hope that others will
enter the thread on the issues.

I will offer two brief footnotes, one to issue one on definitions and
one on the notion of nailing theses to the church door.

Andrew's first problem is the claim that no one has specifically
considered the design process within a full social and economic
context allowing for individual contribution, social elaboration, and
the development of systems on different scales to address the design
process. Andrew is mistaken in the claim that no one has defined
design this way.

Andrew has apparently not read the paper titled Creating Design
Knowledge (Friedman 2001). This offers the kind of definition that
Andrew seems to feel is missing. [I will supply the paper as an email
attachment in .pdf format to anyone who wishes a copy. Send an email
with the word design Knowledge in the header. You will have the
attachment by return post.] I am not the only one who has developed
such a definition. Others such as Fuller (1969, 1981) and Simon
(1996) have also pointed in thus direction.

When I do respond, I will demonstrate that the problems Andrew raises
are genuine. I will ALSO show that a deeper look into the literature
resolves resolve many of the problems as formulated in Andrew's ten
theses.

These ten issues are deep and worth debating, but problem 9 - the
problem of reading - locates part of the problem rather precisely. It
is not necessary to read everything. It is necessary to read what is
relevant.

Andrew has addressed several major issues in philosophy of science
that have been subjected to deep and thoughtful reflection in the
quarter century since Feyerabend published the first edition of
Against Method. Feyerabend's ideas remain relevant to the debate. He
is hardly the only relevant author.

To discuss the philosophy of science after 1975, one must read what
has been written since 1975. Anyone who claims in the year 2002 that
"the philosophy of scientific method is in crisis," cannot be taken
seriously unless he is up to date on the literature of the philosophy
of science.

I find myself perpetually startled when design scholars attempt to
debate the philosophy of science by referring to Feyerabend and
perhaps Kuhn without mentioning other serious writers. We do not see
references to writers whom one would see cited when these issues are
discussed elsewhere. I do not expect anyone to have read all the
writers in this large field. I do expect to see some familiarly with
a few major thinkers.

Without bothering to sort their views out, here is a list of only a
few authors who represent most of the major colors in the spectrum. I
never see these authors quoted when these debates occur in design
circles. The authors include: Bloor, Blumer, Bunge, Carnap, Durkheim,
Einstein, Feynman, Giere, Gordon, Hayek, Hollinger, Holton, Klemke,
Lakatos, Machlup, Mermin, Musgrave, Pickering, Popper, Putnam, Rudge.

I do see Kuhn used, along with Berger and Luckmann - and I usually
them misquoted. Their work is often interpreted in ways that they
have directly argued against.

I do not suggest that everyone MUST read all the authors I list here.
I do say that IF we are going to discuss philosophy of science, THEN
we require at least a passing familiarity with the major issues and
the writers who discuss them.

In my response, I will draw on the required material. Those who wish
to prepare for a serious debate may wish to read two important recent
contributions, Robert Nozick's (2001) Invariances and Stephen
Toulmin's (2001) Return to Reason.

Dr. Martin Luther posted his 95 thesis to the door of the Wittenberg
Church on October 31 - or possibly November 1 - 1517. It was five
years since Luther completed his doctorate and entered the faculty
senate of Wittenberg University as a university master in the faculty
of arts. At the time of the disputation, Luther was responsible for
Wittenberg's studium generale - the basic academic training for
university scholars - and he held the chair in biblical theology.

In medieval university cities such as Wittenberg, it was customary to
nail theses to a church door to announce the topics of a public
debate. This was not because the issues were always theological, but
because the church was the one public forum visited by EVERYONE in a
community. All major notices were posted to the church door. Since a
public debate was intended to reach the entire literate public, all
such calls to debate were posted on the church door.


Anyone who has read the 95 theses knows that Luther demanded fidelity
to source materials. In this, Luther is my predecessor and master.

I close with the introduction to Luther's 95 Theses:

"Out of love and concern for the truth, and with the object of
eliciting it, the following heads will be the subject of a public
discussion at Wittenberg under the presidency of the reverend father
Martin Luther, Augustinian, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology, and
duly appointed Lecturer on these subjects at that place. He requests
that whoever cannot be present personally to debate the matter orally
will do so in absence in writing" (Luther 1961: 490).

I hereby proclaim my willingness to enter this debate. I announce my
intention to debate these issues in writing.

In closing, I echo the words of Martin Luther - or was it Arnold
Schwarzenegger ? -

"I'll be back!"

Ken Friedman


References

Friedman, Ken. 2001. "Creating Design Knowledge: From Research into
Practice." In Design and Technology Educational Research and
Development: The Emerging International Research Agenda. E. W. L.
Norman and P. H. Roberts, eds. Loughborough, UK: Department of Design
and Technology, Loughborough University, 31-69.

Fuller, Buckminster. 1969. Utopia or oblivion: the prospects for
humanity. New York: Bantam Books.

Fuller, Buckminster. 1981. Critical Path. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Luther, Martin. 1961. Martin Luther. Selections from his writings
edited and with an introduction by John Dillenberger. Garden City,
New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company.

Nozick, Robert. 2001. Invariances. The Structure of the Objective
World. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press.

Simon, Herbert. 1996. The sciences of the artificial., 3rd ed.
Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press.

Toulmin, Stephen. 2001. Return to Reason. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press.


--

Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management

Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University