terry and susan
terry, you seem to be suggesting that metaphors need to represent something
and representations would be better served with definitions.
i think you are mixing up two versions of language which i wouldn't want to
do. metaphors draw on past experiences, for example with familiar
artifacts, like studying the brain in terms as an information processing
system = computer. metaphors work can be quite accurate immediate, obvious
and reliable -- not as representations but as being involved in an embodied
practice. the use of definitions, by contrast, are attempts to exorcize the
human observer out of the picture as much as possible. rendering knowledge
textual, objective, and precise as far as the definition is concerned. i am
interested in a human-centered approach to design and therefore more
inclined towards embracing embodied knowledge.
susan, i don't think we are that far apart. you are worried that metaphors
are limited to the big picture whereas design has to get to details. true.
but the lack of details is even more present in theory, which is a
deliberate attempt to omit details in favor of what is common to a large
class of objects. think of the laws of falling bodies which says nothing
about the material of these bodies, their resistance to wind, much less
whether someone wants something fall down. all knowledge is somewhat
general, frameworkish, skeletal, simpler than the details that need to be
worked out, you call it the end product, i suppose.
maybe we should be clear what we are talking about. i was more interested
with how designers proceed, not with their products. the use of the desktop
metaphor refers to the product. what we started to talk about, unsettling
theory, maybe replacing framework by approach, was in my way of thinking
concerned with conceptualizing the work that designers do.
otherwise, i am quite happy that we are not too far off each other
klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of Susan M. Hagan
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 9:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Design & Theory
Hi Klaus,
Yes, I do think that some aspects of my thinking have not come through
clearly.
--On Monday, February 7, 2005 2:20 PM -0500 Klaus Krippendorff
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> we also have visual metaphors, by which i do not mean vague innuendos or
> suggestions but perceptions that upon analysis may well be tied to
> familiarity with other artifacts but tell us instantaneously how to use
> something that one may not have seen before.
As in the desktop metaphor. But that metaphor indicates in broad strokes
how to use something. The details, such as how to connect to the web on
that desktop, still have to be learned. Just as the details of the
research, still have to be identified.
>
> i am saying that because you seem to tie metaphor entirely to words, to
> speech. metaphors in language have a longer history of our being aware of
> them, literature, and are somewhat easier to explain.
I would hate to give that impression since I am so immersed in the visual
aspects as well.
>
> yes, we agree substantially. what i do not quite understand is your
> objecting to accept a metaphor as an end product. i am not sure what kind
> of end product you mean. i suppose that whereas i would be quite content
> to replace "design theory" as the account of design processes by a
> detached observer with "a framework for design," which entails some kind
> of spatial orderliness, or given my uneasiness of the static nature of
> "framework," with something like "design approach" (vs. "observer
> approach" or "user approach"), you seem to want to look for something
> without metaphorical origin.
Again I would hate to give that impression. I'll go back to the example of
textual voice. The term itself has led to too many interpretations from
which no clear definition has arisen. As an end product the metaphor has
muddied the waters rather than elucidated meaning. I'd say again, that I
agree with Turner, Lakoff & Johnson, and Petrie & Oshlag that we need
metaphor to communicate the big picture. But as we have both shown in this
thread, that big picture is not the end picture.
> which some would say are "dead" metaphors,
> for something of which we have shed its metaphorical origin by an effort
> to define the concept. i am suggesting that even if we define "object,"
> "theory," or "intention" we can rarely escape etymology or the original
> metaphorical entailments. we can only chose to ignore them (and may be
> surprised when they hound us later, when least expected).
>
> unless i understood you not clearly, i would not recommend being afraid of
> stopping with a suitable metaphors as way to describe what you want to
> conceptualize and discuss with others, for example in being able to
> support what we do when engaging in design. it serves human
> communication often better than rigid definitions
I agree with the need for spatially based understanding that gives a global
view of the idea under discussion. I just don't think that we can end with
the global view. I don't see your posts as ending with the global view
either. I'm also not looking for rigid perspectives that can't adjust as
new evidence brings new insights. But I am looking for a method in which
details exist that make the big picture more useful and perhaps more easily
shared and interpreted.
All the best,
Susan
>
> klaus
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Susan M. Hagan, Ph.D., MDes.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213
v. 412.268.2072
f. 412.268.7989
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