klaus
thanks for your post. i understand, at least i think i understand, what you are
saying... and i agree. but...
does asking 'what is design cognition' necessarily presume an authoritative
answer?
i can say that i didn't expect an authoritiative answer.
i was expecting more of a discussion that could be triggered by the answer.
rosan
klaus krippendorff wrote:
> rosan,
>
> there is no IS there (a nice paradox)
>
> asking what a word could possibly mean presumes an authoritative answer. if
> you believe in the dictionary as the ultimate authority, you may find your
> answer under "cognition." my webster tells me of its etymology that it
> comes from "co + gnoscere", co=joint and gnoscere=coming to know -- my
> loose translation would be "coming to know in conversation or dialogue."
>
> this is interesting as the "co," the jointness of coming to know, has under
> the influence of the cartesianism of renaissance science eroded into
> knowledge, a thing, something you have acquired or you didn't, and under the
> concurrent rise of western individualism been located in the individual
> mind. presently, "cognitive" is used synonymously with what is going on in
> someone's brain, "thinking" for short.
>
> to make their ideas respectable, scientists have for centuries resorted to
> the rhetorical strategy of replacing ordinary words, e.g., "thinking," by
> words of latin or greek origin, e.g., "cognition," whose meanings they can
> more easily control by defining them in view of their own theoretical or
> institutional commitments. since psychological theories have become
> somewhat less attractive over the last couple of decades, psychologists have
> started to redefine themselves as cognitive scientists, merging their old
> conceptual baggage with modern theories of computation and billing it as
> something new. i have seen designers starting to talk of "cognitive
> factors" because it sounds so sophisticated.
>
> my answer to your question of what "design cognition" is would be that you
> can define it in any way you want. however in doing so, your definition
> will have to be usable in the language, at least within a community of
> speakers, and face the literature and politics of the institutions that use
> the term for their own objectives. even if you succeed in getting your
> definition used, what it comes to describe (i'd prefer brings forth,
> creates, or constructs) is a wholly different issue.
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