Dear Terry, Ken, MP and other list-dwellers,
I seem to have touched a nerve!
My suggestion was that a blurring of the distinction between agency and intention is not helpful in discussing ANT.
Agency and intention can be discussed separately. Wind and water are agents of erosion. As agents, they effect change.
The kind of agency that Latour is interested in, however, is not that of a single actor (like wind or water or a person), but that of clusters of actors that, together, give sufficient weight to a particular direction (or disposition) to make that direction (or disposition) influential in some way. Some of the actors that contribute to the establishment of a disposition or direction may be human, but many will be non-human. These latter will include the material and the immaterial, the animate and the inanimate, the designed and the un-designed. To the extent that humans are influential within a particular actor-network, intentions may play a role; however a focus on intentions may lead us to discount the other actors that are at play. It was for this reason I suggested that a blurring of the distinction between agency and intention might not be helpful in discussing Latour's work. This is not to suggest that it is not important that we be well intentioned in what we do.
Questions of ethics are important, and Latour's work is provocative in the way it reconfigures such questions.
Latour is often playful in tone, but the possibilities that he opens up for reading the world in ways other than those that we have become used to, are more than refreshing; they suggest completely new ways of thinking about the relations between humans, technologies and nature. These conversations are never closed. Every stimulating thinker provokes discussions that move beyond his or her initial positions.
It was not my intention to be either explaining or defending Latour (or, for that matter, Fry - who I have a great respect for) to the list. There are others whom I am sure are better placed to do that. Nor was it my intention to conflate Latour and Fry - I hope that was clear in my initial post. They are different voices within a complex terrain of post-humanist thought.
I hope there are some of you, who like me, find this territory to be of interest in relation to design.
Cheers, Susan
Susan Stewart B.Arch, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Design
School of Design, Faculty of DAB
University of Technology Sydney
Susan Stewart B.Arch, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Design
School of Design, Faculty of DAB
University of Technology Sydney
________________________________________
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ranjan MP [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 8:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Activity Theory and ANT and computers are capable of design?
Dear Ken
Your arguments are sound and well grounded in reason and scholarship.
Designer, Design and the Designed objects or offerings as in services and
rules etc and the concept of "Agency" will all need to be seen in the
context of another concept that has been proposed by George Soros and that
is "Reflexivity" (as applied to financial and economic areas) and I tend to
think that this is perhaps what makes design such a powerful "political"
force after all. Here "Agency" would be from sociology, philosophy and
ethics – as we can see from the wiki definitions below
Sociology <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(sociology)>
Philosophy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)>
Moral <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency>
and
Reflexivity a la Soros - from financial and economic fields
<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Reflexivity.2C_financial_markets.2C_and_economic_theory
>
It is other humans in the prevailing context who act on the design and the
designed thing and make it valuable or a disaster – beyond the imagination
and the intention of the designer – value bumps far beyond the intrinsic
value of the material and its various configurations – unpredictable but
real. Suddenly, there is a huge value bump that could soar far above
expectations as in a fashion movement or trend or in the runaway success of
a bestseller product, at least for the time being. Design is a human
activity that begins with intentions and the results of design are shaped
and acted upon by the prevailing context and new and unintended but perhaps
hoped for results may or may not ensue. Scarcity, inflation, and value all
follow from these relations.
Now, what about computers? What about automated trading algorithms that can
make or break a market without any reference to the fundamentals of the
underlying asset? It is all getting very complicated at a very high speed
and we will need to look closely at some of these designed situations and
services to fathom the consequences of our designed offerings. Can we make
the mission of creating responsible designer in education something that
would include the processing and anticipation of these outcomes as part of
the design process? Perhaps this is why I called my course at NID "Design
Concepts and Concerns" - It is not just about design thinking – but also
about being sensitive to all forms of outcomes including climate change and
human conflicts that could ensue as a consequence of our expert actions. I
called it the Avalanche Effect, but not may takers for this concept it
seems. see this post on my blog Design for India for more about this.
<
http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/2012/07/evolution-of-dcc-course-at-nid.html
>
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my iMac at home on the NID campus
15 August 2012 at 3.35 pm IST
-------------------------------------------------------------
*Prof M P Ranjan*
*Design Thinker and author of blog -
www.Designforindia.com<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/>
*
E8 Faculty Housing
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380 007 India
Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054
email: ranjanmp@g <[log in to unmask]>mail.com
<[log in to unmask]>web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp
<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp>web domain: http://www.ranjanmp.in
<http://www.ranjanmp.in/>blog: <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com>
education blog: <http://www.design-concepts-and-concerns.blogspot.com>
education blog: http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com
<http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com/>
------------------------------------------------------------
On 15 August 2012 13:22, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Susan,
>
> The noun “agency” has within it a kind of ambiguity that is not always
> clear. It is one thing to speak of “agency” as the positive capacity of
> ethical responsibility in making decisions. It is another to speak of
> “agency” in the sense that agency is the embodied but not purposive ability
> to act in carrying out decisions.
>
> While machines may well have agency in the second sense, they do not have
> agency in the first sense.
>
> In the second sense, Tony Fry is right to suggest that “that designed
> things have an agency in excess of the agency we intend them to have.” If
> that is what he means by agency, then it is possible to speak of “the
> agency of non-human (and, specifically, designed) things.”
>
> If, however, he means that designed things have ethical responsibility,
> I’d disagree. I understand the argument, but it seems to me incorrect.
>
> There are several ways to describe the problem. While “designed things
> have an agency in excess of the agency we intend them to have,” we can also
> describe this as the unintended consequences of the designers who design
> those designed things. The designers remain responsible.
>
> To go beyond this, suggesting that designed things are themselves
> responsible seems to me an argument that does not bear discussion outside
> the frame of a thought experiment.
>
> If we can ascribe agency to designed things in the sense of ethical
> responsibility, then one could argue that the gas chambers and the
> railroads had as much responsibility for the Holocaust as the Nazis did.
>
> It is precisely this kind of argument around ANT that troubles me. I’m
> prepared to accept ANT arguments for how things work in systems. I’m
> troubled by the strong sense of the argument. To say that “post-humanist
> approaches to thinking about agency challenge the assumption that human
> agency is independent of non-human agencies.”
>
> Human beings may get things wrong and often do. Only ethically responsible
> agents can take responsibility for improvements. Since designed things
> carry on as they are designed to do, they cannot take responsibility for
> improvements. The essence of design remains acting to create a preferred
> future state by solving problems, meeting needs, improving situations, or
> creating something new or useful.
>
> Yours,
>
> Ken
>
> Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
> Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design |Swinburne University of Technology |
> Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:
> [log in to unmask]> | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 | Faculty
> www.swinburne.edu.au/design<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>
>
> --
>
> Susan Stewart wrote:
>
> —snip—
>
> Perhaps the difference between agency and intention is being blurred in
> what has been said about the insights that ANT can bring to thinking about
> design.
>
> Post-humanist approaches to thinking about agency challenge the assumption
> that human agency is independent of non-human agencies. The approach to
> understanding action and change that is forwardedwithin ANT is one that
> treats human and non-human actors as symmetrical (ieequally significant).
> Non-human actors not only have agency, but also act on us. Our intentions
> (among other things) are shaped by the agency of non-humans.
>
> Tony Fry’s conception of ‘ontological design’ similarly recognises the
> agency of non-human (and, specifically, designed) things. He emphasises
> that designed things have an agency in excess of the agency we intend them
> to have. The unforseen ways in which the designed things that we bring into
> the world re-shape that world, need to be recognised as being at least as
> significant (probably more significant) than the foreseen and intended ways
> in which they re-shape the world.
>
> Fry and Latour belong to slightly different intellectual traditions, but
> both are heirs to the critique of the Cartesian distinction between subject
> and object. This critique, which is central to Heidegger’s work, underpins
> the diverse conversations of continental philosophy during the second half
> of the 20th century.
>
> Personally, I find these insights to be of enormous importance in relation
> to thinking about design.
>
> —snip—
>
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