Geoff,
I was most interested in your response to Terry. We face a similar
problem in evolutionary system studies, where everything seems related
to everything else, and you have to wonder how best to handle the
situation. It seems to me that reductionist and systemic approaches are
both valid, so long as the constraints they bring with them are recognised.
But my real purpose in writing is to ask you to elaborate in specific
terms your reservations about the relevance of Terry's work to
designers. It is simple to make the sweeping statements, but we need
the specifics in order to move forward on these complex matters.
Best wishes,
John
Geoff Matthews wrote:
>Terry wrote:
>
><In summary, I disagree with Geoff about where the problems lie.
>My analyses indicate that the most satisfactory way forward is to move toward defining trust exclusively in terms of humans internal body processes.>
>I am sure that Terry is on to something very interesting and that the research will give us another potentially useful story. But I am also sure that 'trust' defined exclusively in physiological terms can only be a partial definition, so incomplete as to warrant a different or at least highly qualified term. For heuristic purposes we might disregard for a while most of what is interesting and problematic about the phenomenon and focus on a particular perspective - fine. But as far as the business designers are in is concerned such a singular definition cannot be adequate to their purposes or to ours as design researchers. Whether we like it or not most design must cope with epistemological complexity. Some things are usefully defined in terms of cause and effect - e.g. a structure, a load, a stress, a structural failure. Many things are most usefully understood in terms of one sort of explanatory narrative or another - e.g. a ritual, its conventions, its cultural and politi!
cal implications. Reductionism in this context is dangerous!
>
>
>Dr Geoff Matthews
>Course Leader MA Interdisciplinary Design
>Lincoln School of Architecture
>University of Lincoln, UK
>
>
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