Terry (and Person)
Ah Socrates Papastathopoulos. The best defender ever to play for the Greek national soccer team.......
This discussion has moved on from “The World’s Best 25 Design Schools” so a new heading is required but I have copied your message to which I am responding at bottom of this posting.
I have never considered JISCMail PhD Design as a place for academic theory making. It could be argued as advancing the level of understanding in the field; but academic theory making?
My interpretation is more in-line with the aim of all JISCMail forums which is to:
• Share experiences
• Enhance collaboration
• Keep in touch with peers
• Aid research
• Make new contacts
• Keep up to date with advancements in your field
• Announce events
(http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/about/whatisjiscmail.html)
Both you and I know that some of the messages on the List can be somewhat whimsical and the ability to submit posts with professional anonymity only serves to promote this.
Within the scope of JISCMail, I can see no reason whatsoever as to why a subscriber should want to withhold their professional identity. This does not have to be overtly identified; but there should be sufficient information to trace the member if required by the reader. A name and the use of a corporate/academic email address is normally all that is required but some members also include information at the bottom of their postings.
An identity enables readers to more fully understand the context in which a comment is made and this adds richness to the contribution.
As previously mentioned, I am a firm believer in the transparency and openness that is central to academia. And, although I was not fortunate to have known him on a personal level, I am pretty confident that, had the other Socrates been a subscriber to the List, he would have signed-off his messages as:
- Socrates
- The Lyceum
- Athens
Thanks
Mark
Loughborough Design School
Loughborough
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Hi Mark,
One of the premises of academia from Socrates onwards is that the validity
of theory should be independent of subjective judgement, particularly about
the author.
The main thrust of theory making from the Greek school was to remove
rhetoric and rhetorically-based judgement from theory making and judgements
about the quality of theory.
In other words, for sound theory making avoid any taint of rhetoric and its
trappings (status of speaker etc).
This Greek originated endeavour to ensure rhetoric is not part of validating
theory is the basis of contemporary academic theory-making
I feel its of concern on this list if we start to judge validity of theory
in terms of the status and background of who is writing.
Judging the validity of theory on the basis of the status of who is writing
has three adverse effects. It compromises the validity and testing of design
theory (already a serious problem in design research due to misplaced use of
rhetoric). It discourages participation by those with less status. Perhaps
worse, it necessarily results in conservative theory making aligned to the
agreed views of a high status group. This latter is a particular problem in
the current situation where there is a need for significant radical change
in design theory because much of the existing design theory is out-date and
doesn't stand up to critical scrutiny.
I suggest insisting on accuracy of reasoning and sound evidence is a
better way forward for identifying credibility than counting the number of
the author's prefect badges (unless of course one is 'blackboard monitor').
Best wishes,
Terry
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