Hi Terry,
thank you for this input and important aspect within design theory.
I have worked with the problem of discontinuity by myself over the past years and didn't come to a final conclusion. Your way to put it, gives me a new perspective and many questions. Actually as many will know on this list that discontinuity within discourse was originated by Foucault (1972).
I have summarized some key elements from his discourse about discontinuity in a part of my PHD research: Discontinuity is characteristic of every discursive statement and dispersion is the reality underlying all discursive statements. He (Foucault) defines ‘discourse’ as any group of statements, which belong to a single system of formation. However, not all types of discontinuity can be ignored. Discursive formations, according to Foucault, are groups of statements, which may have any order, correlation, position, or function, as determined by this disunity. A discourse can thus be a historical event or an archive of historical statements. The relations between discursive formations may include analogy, opposition, or complementation. Discursive formations may also determine each other's limits or boundaries. Archaeological description is concerned with the rules and principles that may be specific to discursive formations and to discourse itself. Archaeological descriptions, thus, have a diversifying, rather than unifying, effect on our understanding of discursive statements. Hence, in trying to understand the formation and development of discourse, we must abandon our pre-existing notions of unity (Foucault 1972).
The question is now, how do you transfer discontinuity from statements into design activity, design theory and philosophy of design (in philosophy here it is obviously well placed), without falling into the trap of constructing continuity again?
Continuity appears from my perspective as well when we are constructing relations. Putting things together which don't belong together, similar as you therefore are separating the 'discontinuity boundary between Conventional Design (simple and complicated situations) and Complex Design (complex and chaotic situations)' in your paper.
If I use this Foucault frame of discontinuity then I would say that the design discourse is a a discontinuous field of research, crosses into other disciplines and it is equally important to describe the way the statements are dispersed across such various disciplines.
Foucault (1972) notes that ‘statements different in form, and dispersed in time, form a group of statement if the refer to one and the same object’ (p.32).
‘Instead of reconstituting chains of inference (as often does in the history of sciences or of philosophy), instead of drawing up tables of differences (as the linguists do) it would describe the systems of dispersion’ (Foucault 1972, p.37).
Thank you Terence.
Jurgen Faust
Professor für Digitale Medien macromedia hochschule für medien und kommunikation
Foucault, Michel. The Archeology of Knowledge & the Discourse on Language. Translated by A M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.
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