Dear Lubomir,

 You wrote:



"Absolute realist art is not valued for almost a
century. No body things about truth in art. Art is not about truth.
It is about humanitarian ideas."



Realism in art is not valued for almost a century because it was considered 
not be a condition of truth valuable for art.

"Argan" wrote something like this (I'm quoting and translating from memory), 
"Art puts things in problem" "(whilst architecture solve problems)". He 
gives example of the almost irresponsible use of gigantic orders by 
Michelangelo in the Capitol Buildings as artistic. I think that Contemporary 
Art (for a century) is all about Truth, maybe because you can find a lot of 
irresoluble problems with that)

Truth has a central role of Cindy Sherman's or Louise Bourgeois works, for 
instance, in two very different ways.

As for Design, the only (legit) way of making problems is in order to solve 
them. The frontier from art lies there: Art create problems no to be solved.



Like Science, Art is socially constructed. As Goodman would say, both may 
enter the range of a theory of symbols.

That's were Fiction may come handy as a religiant concept to be discussed 
worthy within a possible unified theory of symbols (socially constructed).



This is very hard for me, sometimes. To write in English, I mean (Maybe its 
just fictional English, very different from the real one),



Cheers,



Eduardo

PS: I hope that on your last sentence you meant that "Truth is about 
humanitarian ideas".

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lubomir S. Popov" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: Is all writing fiction?


> Dear colleagues,
>
> This is an amazing problem to discuss. I always want to channel the 
> discussion by area of competency. In this regard, this is not a design 
> research discussion, this a philosophy of science discussion. I would ask 
> you for forgiveness. Please do not get angry at me.
>
> There are major misunderstandings and myths that are propagated now. I 
> would like to help. I also am aware that I use some of the terms a bit 
> loose, and some of them I use only in a particular way. So, I would ask 
> you to interpret my  text not word by word, but in the context of its 
> general spirit.
>
> The world is at a epistemological crossroad. Of course, it is at a 
> cultural crossroad as well. This spurs the emergence of relativism and 
> leads to deconstructivist thinking. By itself, Deconstruction is a new 
> step in the development of intellectuality. I am following 
> deconstructivist developments in the last three decades.
>
> However, there are also side effects. Deconstruction is a very complex way 
> of thinking. Many people abuse its principles, language, and intellectual 
> practices. Because of this, many people abuse deconstructivist thinking. 
> They pick from it only what they can understand and what suits their 
> ideology and social interests.
>
> I came from a dialectical materialist environment and evolved to idealist 
> positions. I have experience both with materialist and idealist 
> philosophies, and the ensuing ontological, epistemological, and 
> methodological thinking. That is why I see the world as if coming from 
> another planet. Some people see what they see. I can see what I have seen 
> and what I see now. That makes a big difference.
>
> The problem with some extreme idealistic statements is that people do not 
> realize what they have picked and what they have assimilated, and what 
> they defend. This happens because of lack of in-depth philosophical 
> preparation, socioeconomic interests, and an aggressive strive to create a 
> professional niche for survival.
>
> See the world. It exists in spite of you and despite of you. It is 
> material (in the materialist sense). It is objective. You can't change it 
> much, even if you want. You can't save it. However, what you know about 
> the world is yours, it is SUBJECTIVE! So, for you the world exists only 
> through your own subjectively selected knowledge about it. I say 
> subjectively selected. Knowledge should not be subjective, otherwise, it 
> would not represent the world. But it is not possible to clear knowledge 
> and truth from subjectivity. I introduced here the concept of truth. There 
> is no time to talk about it now. All truth is relative. We can strive for 
> ultimate truth without ever achieving it.
>
> Some people say that because there is no absolute truth, everything has 
> its own right to be truthful. They say, because we can not clear knowledge 
> from subjectivity, let's make it the way we like it. These are logical 
> mistakes, that serve personal ideologies and defend personal and social 
> interests.
>
> Science is a social institution. It produces knowledge. (Some people think 
> that science is only Positivism and can not accept anything else. Others 
> think that science is Positivism and do not accept science as a legitimate 
> endeavor because Positivism is not the paradigm of their choice.) However, 
> there are many other social institutions that produce knowledge. Religion 
> is one of them. If you want to be scientists, you might wish to work 
> within the framework of science as an institution, according to its norms 
> and standards. Otherwise, you can become a priest and produce knowledge 
> according to the ways of religion. (By the way, I come from an old family 
> of priests. My father remembers how as a small child he got drunk with 
> communion wine left unattended by his grandfather. [He thought it is 
> juice.])
>
> There is a big difference between the concept of social construction (of 
> knowledge) and the concept of fiction. There is a very complex interplay 
> of objectivity and subjectivity here, at societal and personal levels. 
> Socially constructed knowledge is not fiction and is not subjective. It 
> exist objectively in the intellectual realm of society. Competing 
> scholarly knowledge systems are also objective by themselves as long as 
> they are codified and accepted as conventions.
>
> If knowledge is socially constructed, it can be treated as an objective 
> reality as long as the humankind has agreed on this construction. However, 
> it is a reality and objectively existing in the intellectual realm. If 
> your own personal constructions of knowledge do not fit in the societal 
> constructions, we say that your knowledge is subjectively biased, 
> subjective, not true, etc. The social construction of knowledge implies 
> some kind of negotiation of individual and subjective knowledge, to the 
> point when it is codified and institutionalized as scientific knowledge. 
> Once knowledge is institutionalized, it is accepted by society as "true." 
> After a century society will find out that it was actually an illusion. 
> (See the Flogiston controversy.) This doesn't mean that everybody in the 
> world can put forward what ever ideas they have in their head. In science, 
> there is an institutionlized process of proposing ideas, defending them, 
> and accepting them.
>
> Literature also produced knowledge. However, this is not scientific 
> knowledge. On the other hand, what is important for us, is that literary 
> texts can serve as empirical material for producing scientific knowledge. 
> The same for paintings and other forms of fine arts. They by themselves do 
> not constitute scientific knowledge, but can become empirical material for 
> producing scientific knowledge. By the way, literature and art do not 
> strive for truth in presentation. Their social function is to develop and 
> promote particular ideas, values, norms, etc. To achieve this purpose, 
> society allows them to deform objective reality as much as they want in 
> order to promulgate their points. Absolute realist art is not valued for 
> almost a century. No body things about truth in art. Art is not about 
> truth. It is about humanitarian ideas.
>
> Thank you for attention,
>
> Lubomir
>
> At 01:27 AM 1/22/2008, Ken Friedman wrote:
>>Dear Teena,
>>
>>To me, the claim that "all writing is fiction" leads to an infinite 
>>regress. If all writing is fiction, then why is Foucauld's take on power 
>>relations any more reasonable or reliable than that of Simone de Beauvoir 
>>or Herman Melville?
>>
>>If all writing is fiction, then why would we wish to bother with any 
>>account whatsoever? Why would any account be more useful or illuminating 
>>than any other?
>>
>>If all writing is fiction, why would a post-structuralist account be more 
>>useful than an empiricist account or a cognitive account?
>>
>>When we ask for an account of what people witness, hear, say, or 
>>experience, we ask for integrity and reliability, not "validity." This is 
>>not a matter of "proof." It is a matter of asking the author to describe 
>>what is said, a responsible account of what others say.
>>
>>To argue that "all writing is fiction" is to that that we have no 
>>responsibility to the voices of those whose stories we recount. When we 
>>recount the voices of other speakers, the words that we report demand 
>>responsible reporting. This is not "proof," but responsibility.
>>
>>Yours,
>>
>>Ken
>>
>>--
>>
>>Teena Clerke wrote:
>>
>>(1)
>>
>>my intention was to provide an opening for discussion about design 
>>research epistemology without introducing the construct of 'gender', but 
>>by removing the actual bodies themselves. I saw this as a 
>>poststructuralist way to ask a question about possibilities. I wanted to 
>>see what people imagined design research might look like if either men or 
>>women were removed from its practice. This asks for an entirely different 
>>kind of imagining other than the binary of men/women. In a Foucauldian 
>>sense, power and knowledge are interrelated within the social relations 
>>between people and are (re)produced within discourses. So, I thought if 
>>you take out the bodies, what kind of discursive imagining would ensue?
>>
>>(2)
>>
>>Fiona talks about her embodied experiences in design research, sitting 
>>through meetings and listening to the various ways in design is perceived 
>>in a large faculty. I am curious to hear of others' personal experiences, 
>>and particularly welcome those not based on 'proof'. In this call, I do 
>>not wish to debate 'validity' because from my epistemological position, 
>>all writing is fiction.
>>
>>--
>>
>>Ken Friedman
>>Professor
>>
>>Dean, Swinburne Design
>>Swinburne University of Technology
>>Melbourne, Australia
>
> Lubomir Popov, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Interior Design Program
> School of Family and Consumer Sciences
> 309 Johnston Hall
> Bowling Green State University
> Bowling Green, OH 43403-0059
> phone: (419) 372-7935
> fax: (419) 372-7854
> [log in to unmask]