Just a few things, because
well
I can't help myself.
A. The math joke was funny. If we can somehow get onto economists and lawyers, then we can really start slapping our knees.
B. It is a bold statement to claim that someone fails to understand philosophy as a discipline, as opposed to not getting a particular point, which I suffer from all the time (but I try). Defending such a statement, for example, would benefit from knowing one's audience and, for example, knowing that the Head of Philosophy at Oxford had endorsed that person's book on social theory (not philosophy) and the use of positioning theory to understand key political processes empirically from a constructivist approach. This isn't;'t meant to convince anyone of the points made earlier. Arguments have to stand on their own. It is to say, let's stick with the arguments because Ad Hominum responses have a tendency to backfire when we don't do our homework.
As an aside, Harrι studied under Austin, and Austin was well versed in Wittgenstein. In fact, I just found this nice bit on Wikipedia, which sounds right:
> [Austin] occupies a place in philosophy of language alongside Wittgenstein and his fellow Oxonian, Ryle, in staunchly advocating the examination of the way words areordinarily used in order to elucidate meaning, and avoid philosophical confusions. Unlike many ordinary language philosophers, however, Austin disavowed any overt indebtedness to Wittgenstein's later philosophy, calling Wittgenstein a "charlatan".[2] His main influence, he said, was the exact and exacting common-sense philosophy of G. E. Moore. His training as a classicist and linguist influenced his later work.[3]
C. Someone else not me might say that thankfully the world isn't Franco-German, but I would never say that. Because it would be rude and unproductive.
D. My main comments were on theory and philosophy, not philosophy and science. Those remain unaddressed.
E. Finally, as for Szeto's point, I think we can take her guidance and perhaps return the conversation back to design, per se, as this is the subject of the wider discussion.
Successful or not, own comments were trying to attend to the question originally asked about generalizing from the subjective (i.e. I think this is yummy, what claims can I make from that, and what can be done with this for the benefit of designing better?). I still contend there are good ways and bad ways, right ways and wrong ways, of doing that. And theory is different from philosophy, and clarity and good, and confusion is bad.
_________________
Derek B. Miller, Ph.D.
Director
The Policy Lab
321 Columbus Ave, 7th floor
Boston, MA 02116
United States
Phone: +1-617-440-4409
Web: Thepolicylab.org
Twitter: @policylabtweets
On Feb 17, 2011, at 3:16 AM, Adam Parker wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> There's a failure to understand philosophy, in some respects, by some on
> this thread. Not least of which are anti-intellectual one-liners, such as
> the above supposed comparison with mathematics.
>
> It's common to think philosophy is all about sound arguments grounded in
> logic that show truth conditions. A mistake to think that all philosophers
> think so. The world is thankfully not Anglo-American in nature.
>
> I recommend all who hold that logical processes determining truth conditions
> are the core of philosophy should re-read the Wittgenstein of the *Tractatus
> *, and consider the last part of section 6 and section 7 very, very
> carefully. Be prepared to resile from any ethical or aesthetic comment
> thereafter.
>
> Certainly there are those who would argue it's all about validation - but
> those who would take philosophical practice and turn it into a science might
> as well practice science.
>
> Philosophical practice can also be about conceptual construction, without
> reference to notions of truth or falsehood. I would refer the reader to
> Deleuze particularly for this kind of approach.
>
> Arguably, Nietzsche also demonstrates this kind of approach in his model of
> will-to-power, where he shows a means for conceptualising scientific
> evidence, drawn from physical investigations, around the notion of
> will-to-power rather than that of forces. As he shows, he gets a concept
> that implicitly incorporates what we would later come to know as autopoeisis
> for free with his alternate conceptual model of physics.
>
> Why this way? Construction of concepts underlies the sciences, but
> conceptualisation is non-scientific in itself. It spreads out beyond the
> sciences. The process challenges our sciences; it sets up an outsider that
> can assist development of alternate models of interpretation. This thinking
> is pre-scientific, as much as certain physical processes (genetics, amino
> acids etc) are pre-human but implicit in making the human.
>
> There is a vital role there for philosophical practices when understood as
> the art of conceptual construction. Philosophy in a Deleuzean mode, for
> example, is in part about constructing toolsets. It is pragmatic in some
> respects.
>
> It is thus a mistake to consider philosophy vague and loose in general when
> compared with the sciences, as it may not attempting the same task, nor
> require the same standards. While I may not agree with some of Jude's
> original post, I respect the kind of enquiry he proposes, which concerns the
> manner in which a problem is to be conceptualised, rather than validated.
>
> Some will argue this is all bunk, but these are people whose eyes are glued
> open from staring at the same concept; staring for so long that they see it
> as being a truth, rather than a concept.
>
> They commonly see philosophical alternates to their own epistemology as
> "delusions".
>
> Cheers,
> Adam
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 5:29 AM, Jerry Diethelm <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> The difference between Philosophy and Mathematics:
>>
>> In math, all you really need is a blackboard, a piece of chalk and an
>> eraser. It's the same in philosophy, except you don't need the eraser.
>>
>>
>> On 2/16/11 2:07 AM, "Derek B. Miller" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> There is a difference between theory and philosophy, as there is a
>> difference
>>> between validity and soundness. If one is interested in whether a
>> subjective
>>> experience is generalizable, it becomes a research question, which
>> invites a
>>> research design appropriate to the form of claim it aspires to make.
>>>
>>> The movement from philosophy to science is the move that seeks
>> validation, and
>>> aims to build theory on the basis of validity. Philosophy itself does not
>>> require this because it states its premises and builds sound arguments
>>> (hopefully) from these, or else reflects on premises to create sound
>> arguments
>>> about them (from, of course, other premises).
>>>
>>> The problem with radical constructionism is that it is
>> self-contradictory. If
>>> meaning cannot be determined or successfully imparted, one wonders why
>> they
>>> these people keep talking. It would seem that the least they could do
>> for
>>> the sake of integrity is shut up.
>>>
>>> Likewise, the claim that "nothing is knowable" is also self-contradictory
>>> because it holds itself as a known and knowable truth. This is what
>> killed
>>> Skepticism in ancient Greece.
>>>
>>> The constructivist turn itself one I do work in recognizes a
>> plurality of
>>> social systems of meaning, and those who are indeed scientists (I am one)
>> seek
>>> to determine those meanings empirically.
>>>
>>> For those interested in the empirical understanding of constructed forms
>> in
>>> communication, I suggest the work of Gerry Philipsen and Donal Carbaugh
>> who
>>> have helped build the field of ethnography of communication.
>>>
>>> If design wants to move towards theory from philosophy, it is going to
>> need to
>>> address the standards of scientific inquiry into social phenomena.
>>> _________________
>>> Derek B. Miller, Ph.D.
>>> Director
>>>
>>> The Policy Lab
>>> 321 Columbus Ave, 7th floor
>>> Boston, MA 02116
>>> United States
>>> Phone: +1-617-440-4409
>>> Web: Thepolicylab.org
>>> Twitter: @policylabtweets
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Feb 7, 2011, at 7:42 AM, CHUA Soo Meng Jude (PLS) wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm sympathetic to Terence's concerns about subjectivity, and this
>> reminds me
>>>> of the following. One of the things I've been struggling with when
>> detailing
>>>> what design is or what constitutes a design theory or science of design
>> is
>>>> the scope of what is to be studied and detailed under "design" or
>> "design
>>>> thinking" etc. My colleagues (also in philosophy) complain that design
>> seems
>>>> to be anything practical and it's so broad if one attempts a
>> essentialist
>>>> study of what constitutes a common denominator of design you either get
>> too
>>>> much in it or else so little its not illuminating. My colleagues in
>> sociology
>>>> (or history) basically argue that everything is more or less constructed
>> so
>>>> there's no objective essence of anything and you need to study something
>> in
>>>> context, so they recommend studying what this or that particular
>> designer
>>>> says, here, then, etc. There are parallels here; in education for the
>> longest
>>>> time the philosophers (Hirst et al) at IoE were interested in detailing
>> the
>>>> essence of this and that, and their colleagues in sociology and history
>>>> (McCullogh and Whittey, etc) thought this was totally wrong headed. In
>>>> jurisprudence there was something similar with people like Austin trying
>> to
>>>> define "law" as imperatives and Hart arguing that sociologically that
>> was not
>>>> how the Englishman grasped the law, but rather these were, rules. But
>> John
>>>> Finnis suggested that there was a self conscious attempt even in Hart's
>> case
>>>> to avoid merely describing in context what someone thinks the law is but
>> that
>>>> Hart self-consciously choose some rather than other view points as
>>>> representative of a viewpoint about the "law". Retrieving Aquinas and
>>>> Aristotle, he called this the quest for the central case, or the focal
>>>> meaning, and here even if law can mean many things, the theorist would
>> only
>>>> choose a select type of viewpoint and it's understanding of the law for
>>>> study. Herbert Simon had that approach it seemed to me: he wanted to
>> detail
>>>> the epistemology not of any designer (syn. "professional") but only of
>> those
>>>> whose reasoning was sound. Nigel Cross I noticed somewhat
>> self-consciously
>>>> does the same: he is interested mostly in the work or thinking of "good
>>>> designers", and not anyone who comes along and who could still be
>> loosely
>>>> called a designer. I think this is a sensible way to go. There's a kind
>> of
>>>> selectivity, a kind of recognition that, while there are many designers
>> and
>>>> many design epistemologies, design theory should focus on the central
>>>> instances, and not the peripheral types (which whilst peripheral still
>> are
>>>> design-ings, just as for instance in the case of jurisprudence, legal
>>>> positivists would say, an evil law is still a law, but a central case
>>>> theorist would agree but point out, that this law whilst law was law
>> only in
>>>> the peripheral sense.) The challenge in the development of a central
>> case,
>>>> however, is the justification of the criteria for selecting what should
>> be
>>>> focal and what is peripheral; Finnis argues that we should always adopt
>> the
>>>> viewpoint of the person whose reasoning is sound (including practical,
>> moral
>>>> reasoning). But this then leads to another problem; is there such a
>> viewpoint
>>>> that is objective, defensible, etc? This viewpoint, as Finnis argues, is
>> that
>>>> viewpoint of the practically reasonable person, i.e., to be worked out
>> by the
>>>> ethicist. Here I find Simon's account of practical reason limiting,
>> given his
>>>> earlier positivism and later affirmation of the naturalistic fallacy,
>> and his
>>>> general skepticism of the existence of normative precepts with an
>> account of
>>>> terminal values. Cross I find limiting in another way since he prefers
>>>> research on design by designer-researchers but clearly this exclusivism
>>>> blinds us to important work on axiologies done by non-designers, and
>> indeed
>>>> undermines his attempt to discern the thinking of "good" designers, and
>> who
>>>> are good designers should not, I feel, be left to some arbitrary,
>>>> conventional or preferential judgment.
>>>>
>>>> Ideas in need of more work
>>>> Jude
>>>>
>>>> -----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
>> Terence
>>>> Love
>>>> Sent: Friday, 4 February, 2011 2:56 PM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Re: generalizability of research through/by design
>>>>
>>>> Hi Luke
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Any subjective-based approach to making design theory, whether
>>>> continentally high flying such as Dreyfus, Heidegger, Sartre or Husserl,
>> or
>>>> lowflying as in protocol analysis self reporting and opinion-sampling
>>>> empirical surveys depends on their being some justifiably accurate
>>>> connection between what people report about 'inside of themselves' and
>> what
>>>> is observably going on as seen by others in ways that can be subjected
>> to
>>>> some kind of empirical checking.
>>>>
>>>> It's pretty effortless to show that subjectivist reality isn't a great
>> basis
>>>> for deriving theory from. We don't know what we think or feel. We lie
>> about
>>>> it to ourselves. We are subject to widespread illusions and delusions
>> moment
>>>> by moment as well as over the longer term. All these make subjective
>> 'truth'
>>>> pretty undependable as a basis for making theory about being, nothing
>> ness -
>>>> or design.
>>>>
>>>> This puts a pretty big challenge to continental philosophy to get round
>> -
>>>> and I've not yet come across a sincere attempt to prove empirical
>> validity
>>>> of continental philosophers' speculations by members of that group who
>>>> have continued to remain in that tradition.
>>>>
>>>> Or can you think of a situation otherwise?
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes,
>>>> Terry
>>>>
>>>> National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg
>>>>
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>> --
>> Jerry Diethelm
>> Architect - Landscape Architect
>> Planning & Urban Design Consultant
>>
>> Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
>> and Community Service University of Oregon
>> 2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
>> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Adam Parker
> Senior Lecturer, Games Design
> Qantm College
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