Dear Terry, Clive, Anne-Marie, Uma, Sukanta, Chris and Others,



Knowing who the leader is, shouldn't the course be called Master of Design
Defutures ?

;-)



I must call to the stand the theory of Middle Science, a Jesuit
philosophical doctrine of the late 1500's formulated by Pedro da Fonseca,
Professor at Coimbra University.

"God contemplates the field of possibility through the science of simple
intelligence; Through middle science knows the realm of "futurability",
understanding by this term all that the humans would do in the multiplicity
of circumstances before them; by the science of vision, God sees which human
action goes beyond the states of possibility and "futurability" to become an
absolute future."

Translated from: Calafate, "Pedro, Pedro da Fonseca" e os Conimbricenses in
Filosofia Portuguesa at
http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/filosofia/ren13.html . Accessed today.

The middle science stood between the science of simple intelligence that
allowed God to know everything and the science of vision that allowed God to
know the absolute future that happens due to his decree. Thus God knew what
things could go from possibility to existing in the future.

Futurability "Futurabilia" was the key concept introduced by Fonseca and
developed by Molina in a doctrine known as Molinism. This key concept
allowed the possibility of human's freedom of choice within the catholic
sphere. It also allowed the Jesuits to pursuit a scientific attitude that
went beyond the limitations of Natural Theology (the study of the creatures
in order to came closer to God).

Pedro da Fonseca clearly opened also a possibility of a science devoted to
defining, determining, forecasting the Future. He also advocated Philosophy
as an "omnium scientiarum domina", the queen of sciences. Therefore, this
connection between Future and Philosophy may have a genealogy (not always
peaceful, I imagine, since Molinism was almost declared heretic).

But, without any confirmation and resulting from an intuition, I think that
most of the philosophers concerned with the Future studied mostly the Past.
In fact even Tony Fry's A New Design Philosophy, An Introduction to
Defuturing is a History book.



This course (greatly appraisable) is curious because of its title, as if all
graduation courses (except the ones on Design History) on Design shouldn't
be on Design Futures. The plural is not incidental, I'm sure. That's why
futurability is such an interesting concept. Since we know that there will
be only one Future, when we are saying "Futures" we say it because we admit
different futures in the present and thus understand the present as the
place of futurability. In order to understand the present as a place for
futurability we must study other existing presents and their futurabilities,
otherwise we will not find any process through which possibilities became
absolute future. Therefore, we must study the Past not as past but as a
Present as a place for futurabilities.

Back to History, then.

Cheers,

Eduardo







----- Original Message -----
From: "Terence Love" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: Master of Design Futures & Design + Social Sciences


> Clive,
>
> I feel you are right to encourage us to congratulate new graduate programs
> in design for sustainability/design futures.
>
> Increasingly these new programs are 'negotiating practice and theory' via
> theoretical and analytical discourse in increasingly complex ways. Many
> postgraduate offerings teaching design now do so in ways that go beyond
> sustainability to include most other arenas of human interest for the
> future
> across the Humanities, Sciences, Business-related fields and Public
> Governance.
>
> In this congratulatory spirit, we should also congratulate other design
> courses that fit this mold.
>
> Three groups come to mind.
>
> Post grad programs like the Masters in Environmental Architecture at the
> Research Institute for Sustainable Energy; delivered on the basis of a
> great breadth of practice-based, theoretical, analytical and philosophical
> discourse.
>
> New programs of engineering institutes that focus on design across a wide
> variety of human perspectives and discourses. Many encompass curricula of
> 'Art and Design' degrees alongside social and philosophical dialogue and
> engineering analysis. In these courses, there is always a strong focus on
> futures. In many, the focus on sustainability and environmental issues is
> also strong. These developments are to be congratulated. The
> transformation
> of these programs has been steady and the significant changes overlooked
> by
> many design researchers.
>
> Sukanta raised the importance of a systems perspective. To be
> congratulated
> most are those postgraduate design courses that draw on systems
> philosophies
> such as those of Forrester and others at MIT. Remember 'Limits to
> rowth' -
> a philosophical and practical foundation of sustainability and
> environmental
> design based on systems philosophy? These systems-based courses in design
> (stand up you know who you are) assume that design decisions are mostly
> wrong - especially when done intuitively in complex situations. Perhaps
> the
> graduates of these programs may be the new design (and design research)
> heroes.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Best wishes,
> Terry
> ____________________
> Dr. Terence Love FDRS, AMIMechE
> Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Unit,
> Associate Researcher at Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence
> Institute
> Research Associate at Planning and Transport Research Centre
> Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
> Mob: 0434 975 848 Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629 (home office) [log in to unmask]
> Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
> Development
> Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.
> Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council,
> UNIDCOM/IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
> ____________________
>
>
> -----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 Clive
> Dilnot
> Sent: Tuesday, 18 March 2008 12:48 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Master of Design Futures & Design + Social Sciences
>
> All,
> I would have thought that for most people on this list the development of
> new graduate programs in design for sustainability/design futures would
> be
> a matter for congratulation and not for a somewhat snide comment (Phd list
> 3/15).
>
> The promotional language used to announce a program is of scarce import.
> What matters is content, and since in this case the DPP papers and its
> editor/s have already developed a highly significant level of
> theoretical
> and analytical discourse around design futures the prospect of a graduate
> program which attempts the messy but potentially rewarding business of
> negotiating practice and theory in these areas is a matter of great
> interest. How does theory work to inform practice? How does
> theoretically-informed practice work to create "projects" which challenge
> the existing limits and models of understanding? Setting in chain that
> relationship, and especially in relation to sustainability, is key to
> future
> practice and study in design.
>
> Programs attempting to explore these issues should therefore in principle
> be welcomed.
>
> Be that as it may, the questions, and challenges, posed by Uma Chandru are
> much more interesting, for they indicate the major paradigm shift in
> design
> studies over the next decades which is the shift from the attempt to model
> design quasi-scientifically or technologically to a situation in which
> design enters into a much deeper and more complex dialogue (and I stress
> this word) with the social sciences as a whole.
>
> There are numerous straws in the wind that suggest that is the case, both
> in practice (the increasing use of social scientific methodologies,
> especially in research) and theoretically (as the DPP papers indicate) It
> is
> very difficult to see how it could not be so. Design is after all
> endemically the process through which the social is mediated in relation
> to
> artifice and artificial systems.
>
> But as Uma Chandra's questions indicate, establishing such a relation or
> set
> of relations will not be easy--especially at the theoretical level (the
> pragmatics of practice will often allow for more expedient adjustment of
> contrasting ways of acting than will entrenched theoretical models). All
> this points to the fact that, at present, the design analytical community
> has almost no adequate "institutional" means of exploring these
> relations--or of developing depth-expertise in design for social
> scientists
> or of the social sciences for designers. What might ask whether this is
> not
> a project that should taken up by the Design Research Society and its
> equivalents?
>
> Clive Dilnot
>
>
>
>
>
> Clive Dilnot
> Professor of Design Studies
> Dept. Art and Design Studies, Rm 609
> Parsons School of Design,
> New School University,
> 2w 13th St.
> New York NY 10011
>
> T.1-212-229-8916 x1481