Hi, Terry,
This remains tricky, but I can offer a reasonable set of answers.
1) This does not help to build a body of useful theory about design activity alone, but rather a body of useful theory and knowledge about professional practices of all kinds and the human process of inquiry and action.
2) In that sense, these issues can very well stand up in a PhD thesis subject to critical inquiry by a philosophically careful examiner. Once again -- and here I think you've slipped by an important point -- I have offered several vital examples from the literature of several fields. To give yet another case or two in point, Chuck mentioned Abraham Maslow's work and Jerry brought in Richard Rorty and the pragmatist tradition, and that sends us back to John Dewey and George Herbert Mead.
Again, I want to emphasize that I am speaking of _appropriate_ passion. If you reduce the concept to passion alone, that's another conversation. And this is why I purpose introduce ancient terms, to recapture a classical distinction. Arete is hardly a matter of novelty, and it involve virtue in the large sense rather than aesthetics or ethics. In addition to arete, I have also pointed to phronesis, that is wisdom, and it involves wise engagement with the passions and the wise use of human or professional skills.
If you want to pin me down further than this, you must ask questions related to the issues I am raising. Someone else may be talking about passion in a different way. I am proposing a strict and delimited sense of the passions appropriate to wise professional practice by those who take on a voluntary commitment -- obligation, if you will -- to service through design.
It may well be that Philippe Starck and Damien Hirst experience some kind of passion for whatever it is they are doing, but whatever it is they are doing has little to do with solving the problems of legitimate stakeholders. For this reason, I am not using the term in the sense that it can apply to whatever it is they do -- nor to the objects or artifacts about which collectors or the ostentatious rich can become passionate.
If you want to ask about this, therefore, you've got to ask about what it is I am attemnpting to describe, and not about what others may have described using the same word.
To speak of passion for a croissant is a very different meaning than I intend, and if you are driving 60 km _only_ to buy a croissant, I would not call that good sense no matter how good the croissant. Instead I would describe that as the unwise exercise of passion in the service of individual taste. That's what the rich and the super-rich, the aristocrats and the oligarchs, have always done without regard to the larger consequences of their deeds.
Like most of us, I can imagine a shopping excursion for many things that might also involve picking up 60-km-distant croissants. And I can imagine telling the tale to exaggerate the drama of my croissant preference by neglecting to mention the other reasons for my 120-km round trip. Unless I were Chris Rust on one of his cycling adventures, though, I don't think I'd ever consider traveling 120 km for a croissant, no matter how good.
Warm wishes,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Professor
Dean
Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia
Telephone +61 3 9214 6755
www.swinburne.edu.au/design
--
Terry Love wrote:
1. How does it help build a body of useful theory about design activity that is coherent with the best knowledge across all related disciplines from the sciences, humanities, engineering, arts, bsuiness and social sciences.
2. How will it stand up in a PhD thesis being critically examined by a philosophically careful examiner.
I'm not suggesting that empirical evidence is needed - that's a different issue (see my post to Chris). My questions are about concepts, theory and accurate reasoning.
I'm specifically asking for greater clarity about the detaisl of the reasoning. When 'passion' is used to describe part of the mix of what are 'human qualities of people that design', then its reasonable to ask how how that links to other theory (such as that of aesthetics and ethics - calling them arete if novelty is needed) that relates to practical outcomes.
Off to buy croissants from Abhi's wonderful bakery 60km away - is that passion or just good sense cos they're the best croissants?
|