Gavin
Interesting approach - thanks. Language is and seems to remain one of
the most important and underrated aspects of design (Klaus
Krippendorff's new book seems to be an exception).
Wittgenstein also said that if something can be uttered it can be
misunderstood, and when we 'remember' his reference to language 'games'
we should keep in mind, not any game that humans have devised for their
amusement, nor even a game such as chess (with one winner), but the new
tendency that is emerging in interaction design to use gaming theory
with an educational underpinning. This is a 'game' at which everyone can
be the winner, because of the learning element involved. When we play
sociological language games in Wittgenstein's sense we are supposed to
be engaged in a cybernetic conversation of understanding, which makes it
very much like design itself - design IS a reciprocal conversation
(Ranulph Glanville). Constructivism as a methodology of understanding is
exactly the same: design is not to be defined as anything, if by design
we mean the thinking parts that make up the sociological whole, and not
design as the manufacturing parts that are shifted around the globe to
wherever the cheapest labour is to be found. The definition of design as
something that can be written down and followed as a recipe/rule, even
as guidelines, usually end up as a rule-based method on how-to-design,
instead of a theory that makes you look at a problem situation
differently.
Real design (design thinking & design languaging) cannot and should not
be defined, in the same way that Bruno Latour refuses to define what
actor-network thory is and what it can 'do' for you.

You touch on a very interesting and potentially dangerous field of
research in design - if "words are always assembled on the spot in
contexts of interpretation and production which are always dialogic" -
where does that leave the definition of design that so many people still
seem to want and feel confortable with?
James Gee would, I presume, agree fully with Latour's notion of the
reassembly of the social (also implying the reassembly of what we know
about the products we design, produce, live with and react to), a
'thing' (referring to the Icelanding Thing or meeting place/gathering)
that necessitates a new assembling of understanding under different
contextual circumstances, as the need arises.
This is 'dangerous' because of the speed at which change can take place
- sociologically, speed and (real and lasting) understanding do not go
together very well, although, if truth be told, change usually does take
place (in the individual) at an alarming pace (hence Polanyi's reference
to finding yourself at another shore of reality). Politically this can
lead to disaster through being swept up to belive in a 'cause', in
design terms it means the product/system becomes a metadesign (Gerhard
Fischer), which is a different and a good thing altogether.

Johann


>>> Gavin Melles <[log in to unmask]> 06/15/08 2:05 AM >>>
One of the more perspicacious approaches to the function of language and
probably the source of Mike's 'context is eveyerthing' was the later
Wittgenstein. On a more practical and applied level with some relevance
to the kind of sociocultural and linguistic project that seems to be
hinted at here on the list is the work of James Gee on discourse
analysis. Gee suggests, in line with most current thinking in a range of
linguistic, sociological and anthropological fields that the meanings of
words are always assembled on the spot in contexts of interpretation and
production which are always dialogic. The sociocultural patterns that
lie behind the assembled on the spot meanings for words - e.g when
people talk about parenting, definitions of design ... will coalesce
into a broad package of meanings differentiated by class, gender etc.,
into what anthropology calls cultural models and what we can call
discourse models (and which partly correspnd to Wittgenstein's language
games; Bourdieu's logic of practice). Ultimately these socio-culturally
differentiated accounts of parenting, design etc., will then link into
broader frameworks which Foucault called discourses, Wittgenstein called
forms of life (or something similar). So much for how language (and
words) actually work. Now one of the other thing that cultural and
discourse studies (and some parts of sociology ...) have taught us is
that thigns like the search for meanings - the desire for a 'simple
definition' etc., is always interested (by that I mean motivated) and
whatever is discovered or agreed upon should not be read off as some
sort of final (ah releif) reading of how words correspond to the world
(the kind of simplistic naive nominalism that Wittgenstein showed early
in PI to be just that - naive). When language is not 'working' in the
kind of insturmental way it normally does (hinted at by Terry) but is
extracted and set in the kind of pedestal that SOME philosophy still
likes to do people come up with all sorts of fanciful arrangements.
Langueg use historically (diachronically) and currently (synchronically)
is always in a state of temporary stability and embodies souvenirs of
the past an hints at the future in its forms and uses. These facts (and
some of the other stuff above) should not be forgotten when playing
language games.

Gavin Melles
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Swinburne University of Technology
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