Dear Ken and all,
On 10/04/2013, at 5:10 AM, Ken Friedman wrote:
> design arises from intention
Some time ago I pointed list members toward some important philosophical arguments about the nature of intention. Ken is probably familiar with the arguments, but for those of you who are not, you might like to look at:
Anscomb G.E.M 1957
Intention
Oxford: Blackwell
It's not an easy read, but it is extremely important.
I know Anscomb wrote a short essay on the subject which is more accessible, and it has featured in a number of anthologies, but I cannot lay my hands on the reference as I write.
Anscomb was steeped in Wittgenstein's thinking, and was entrusted with editing and publishing his work posthumously. Her own work draws heavily on his methods of argument, particularly his later work.
As far as I can tell, many of the North American scholars, taking their lead from Dennett and Searle, do not draw on Anscomb. If they had done so, their arguments would take a very different tack. But that's a long story.
As many of you know, I have based some of my own thinking on Wittgenstein's methods, particularly in the area of communication theory, and I find some of the arguments on this list about 'what-is-a-design' bearing a strong resemblance to some of the arguments about the nature of communication, with the implied notion of intention featuring largely.
For those of you interested in this, you can find a summary in one of the papers on our web site. It contains a summary of Anscomb's arguments which is probably easier to grasp than Anscomb's own writing, without doing too much violence to the subtlety of her work. I think the arguments would carry over well to discuss the nature of a design.
https://communication.org.au/modules/publisher/index.php/item.28/the-boundary-of-communication.html
David
--
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web: http://www.communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO • Communication Research Institute •
• helping people communicate with people •
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