dear ken,
i want to be sure not to be misunderstood:

you interpret me as suggesting "that designers are not "undisciplined" and
add "that as a community they cannot be undisciplined."  i said just the
opposite

to me, designers as a group are committed to innovate, consider futures not
yet existing, suggest changes that people have not thought of, think out of
the box of any discipline.  If designers are disciplined, they can do their
job only in the confines of a particular discipline which is a limitation
that designers should not accept.  i made one important provision to the
necessary undiscipline of designers and that is their accountability to
stake holders, which is enough of a constraint on their creativity not to be
unethical, immoral, or ruinous to people who will have to live in the
futures that designers propose for realization.  i maintain this is all that
is needed. accountability to stakeholders may well be adopted as a
definition of the community of designers, but not a particular method,
style, academic discipline, or approach.  you seem to agree with that but
want to add discipline into the design profession.

i do make a distinction between abstractions such as those i mentioned and a
concern for people grounded in giving people the ability to object, oppose,
support, encourage, insert, rearticulate, which denote rater concrete
actions that stakeholders can take - unlike the abstractions you are using.
my notion of human-centeredness, for example, is so grounded (see my book
"the semantic turn"), yours seem to float in what volosinov called
abstract-objectivist language.

you say that we substantially agree but use different language.  you are
right about using different language, but i cannot or will not separate the
language i am using (dialoging with) from what it means, what it entails,
what it brings forth and the concepts it gives rise to.  i am convinced and
share that convictions with many philosophers of language and social
constructivists that we live and understand in language and if this is so,
we should not use grammars and linguistic constructions that contradict
one's concern.  for example, human-centeredness. to me this is a conception
in which one grants other human beings the ability to enter and enact their
own conceptions into the phenomena you are describing.  sorry, ken, i do not
see you do that as evident in the frequent statements that contributors to
this list are wrong and that the sources you cite can provide the truth that
others should accept as you state them, without qualifying that these are
just your own conceptions  (... speaking of discipline ... )

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 Ken
Friedman
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 7:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Disciplines, Fuss, etc.

Dear Klaus,

Thanks for your reply. I understood the intention -- when you asked that we
recall the meaning of the word based on its etymology, I wanted to clarify
the etymological descent from study and learning.

But this also points to the issue you raise here, in part to suggest that
designers are not "undisciplined" and to say that as a community they cannot
be undisciplined.

All human groups establish some form of symbolic community through which
they establish meaning and create a common culture. This is how we transmit
information and -- more important -- how we transmit the internalized
actionable information the constitutes knowledge. It is how we share values
and build communities. It is how we create and sustain the symbolic universe
within which each groups creates, enacts, and gives voice to (languages) its
world.

As you do, I prefer a human-centered approach. I am also aware of the social
reality of the design profession. All professions that shape strong cultures
and professional solidarity deal with the problems you label as
abstractions: disciplines, professionalism, culture, governance. Whatever
you want to label them -- and whether or not you wish to give them any
abstract label at all -- the phenomena they represent are part of the
cultural and behavioral repertoire of designers. Becoming undisciplined is a
personal choice, and individuals often make this choice over and against the
social pressure of the groups to which they belong. They must frequently
make this choice over against the sanctions and punitive reactions of their
communities.

We do not differ on the human-centered approach. We differ in the way we
talk about it. The concepts of "human-centered approach" and "stakeholder"
are abstraction in just the same way that concepts such as "culture" or
"profession" are abstractions. The words we use create and give rise to the
world through abstraction -- it seems to me that you are criticizing my use
of words as abstract while suggest that the words you use are not abstract.
I'd say that all words are abstract, since they describe things rather than
being the things they describe.

Designers should be remain accountable to their stakeholders. Like lawyers,
physicians, senators, and even professors, they ten to count their
professional colleagues and social communities among the stakeholder groups
to which they must account -- the challenge of understanding the nature of
the stakeholder is as problematic for designers as for any other group, and,
as with all groups, designers can sometimes be more loyal to one group of
stakeholders than to another.

This is especially the case for social groups with strong cultures -- hedge
fund financiers with six thousand pound suits are an example of such a
group, as are lawyers, uniformed military officers, or a convocation of
black-suited Jesuits. The convocation of black-suited designers in my
example was no less cohesive than any of these others, and my observation of
most design studios suggests that most design disciples submit themselves to
disciplinary thinking, demonstrating obedience by putting loyalty to
stakeholders within the firm above loyalty to outside stakeholders (again,
see Byrne and Sands 2001).

We agree on what should be. I argue that what should be is the abstract
here: you describe an ideal situation. The realities on the ground are
different.

Yours,

Ken

--

Reference

Byrne, Bryan and Ed Sands. 2001. "Designing Collaborative Corporate
Cultures." In Creating Breakthrough Ideas. Bryan Byrne and Susan E. 
Squires, eds. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 47-69.

--

Klaus Krippendorff wrote,

dear ken,
it is late here.
only two points.
(1)  i did not want to develop a complete etymological history of the word
discipline - whether disciple came before discipline and such - to me a
disciple submits him or herself to disciplinary thinking and is no longer
him or herself, has internalized the disciplinary aspect of discipline. 
(2)  i deliberately qualified my preference for design as an undiscipline by
saying that designers remain accountable to their stakeholders.  the latter
avoids the kind of abstractions that you introduce like disciplines,
professionalism, culture, governance.  i prefer a more human-centered
approach as you know.
klaus


-- 

Ken Friedman
Professor
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of
Management Oslo

Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
Copenhagen

+47 46.41.06.76    Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95    Tlf Privat

email: [log in to unmask]