Dear Geoff, 

Thank you for your message, and thanks to Ken or responding on my behalf.

In aprt, I agree with you. It seems to me that there is a serious, yet in design terms very common, epistemological problem associated with the term 'trust'.  Eduardo, Lubomir and Peter have drawn attention to a side-effect of this problem, which is that the term 'trust', in common everyday language, relates to many situations, circumstances, objects, people, and communications.

As far as I can see, the problem with 'trust' lies in the area of 'naming' rather than 'explaining'.  The core problem of the concept of trust is that the common everyday usage is based on earlier limited forms of knowledge that have resulted in a concept that is both too 'loose' and epistemologically misdirected. I suggest that explaining trust through the physiology of human internal processes makes good sense.  

Epistemologically, the problem of defining trust is similar to problems of defining many of the 'common language' abstract terms that in the field of design research we have not yet developed satisfactory technical definitions.  The same problem, with its four dimensions, emerges in relation to a variety of terms such as: 'beauty', 'creativity', and 'design '.  The problem is not restricted to design research.  It applies also to many other everyday terms such as 'nice'.

For deriving technical definitions of these common language terms, the four dimensions of the epistemological problem are:
Problematically defining the term conceptually in terms of objects
Inappropriate nominalisation.  The core technical meaning is normally found in the verb form, in this case, as Kari-Hans notes, ' trusting'.
Creating approximate definitions of a term in relation to things with which it is associated rather than its essence and the elements of which the concept is composed.
That in terms of current understanding, the term and concept are  problematically too large a 'theoretical building brick'. 

There are many terms and concepts in the public domain that originated in earlier eras that were the best that could be achieved in relation to the understanding of the time.  Understanding and theoretical quality have moved on.  Concepts and terms that were regarded as highly technical in the past are now part of common language-with all their original limitations and weaknesses of understanding.

In the case of 'trust', or rather 'trusting', the above four problems apply in spades.

Standing back, the 'trust' situation as it appears to me is that:

'Individual humans, with their personal histories and characteristics, in particular personal states/moods, and in particular situations, are able to feel internal sensations  of 'trusting' that support their decision-making and actions'

First, epistemologically, it makes no sense to define trust in terms of the objects and situations that raise the sensations associated with 'trust '.  This would be as epistemologically problematic as trying to define the colour red (a particular range of frequencies of electromagnetic energy) in terms of the underlying characteristics of objects that are red such as blood (trust defined in terms of cells and platelets) or roses (trust defined in terms of petals and greenfly).  

Second, the problems of inappropriate nominalisation are well-known.  I have pointed to some of them in earlier postings.  Central to the nominalisation problem is that we can create illusory nouns (such as trust)  in language regardless of whether the objects that they name exist. The ability to create a noun from a verb doesn't provide necessary and sufficient conditions to create the object described by that noun.

In this case, the fact that people are capable of real behaviour and real internal processes of 'trusting' does not provide any proof of the real existence of an object referred to by the name 'trust'.

Third, in creating technical definitions of a term, theory or concept there is a difference between ' associated entitiesand relationships' and the elements of which something is composed.  This applies in, but not across, all  three realms of: external observation; subjective observation; and theory.  Trusting is in essence something that happens inside individuals. In the context of creating technical definition of trust (for use in design research and design theory making), it looks to me to be seriuosly problematic to attempt to create a technical theoretical definition of trust in terms of the associated external aspects of human condition, human relationships or situations.  

Four, contemporary understanding of human internal emotional and feeling processes suggest that the scale of the concept of 'trusting' is too coarse.  That is, it is too large and insensitive a construct too usefully relate to contemporary understanding of how humans feel, decide, reflect, think judge and interact with other individuals and with objects.  

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.  The temporary hiccup over the last 5000 years that required trust to be discussed in terms of peoples' external situations, relationships and histories was a limitation of the knowledge that was available.  In other words, the old usages and explanations were once the best was possible, now it's time and possible to move onand. for the first time, properly define these human theoretical constructs .

For the field of design research, this and similar issues are important in terms of building theories about the complex difficult to conceptualise issues involved in human design activities.

Best regards,

Terry
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Dr. Terence Love
Curtin Research Fellow
Dept of Design
Curtin University
Western Australia
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Tel/fax: +61 (0)8 9305 7629
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