Dear Terry,
I am following the last discussions with interest. I appreciate your contributions to design theory and to this list. However, some of the positions that you share in the last several months might be stretched to the extreme and difficult to defend.
First, let me start with your assertion that machines can design. It is very strong. It will be difficult to defend. Furthermore, it is impossible to defend on disciplinary grounds-- I mean from the position of design studies and the design disciplines. We need to discuss this issue at philosophical level.
From a Historical Materialist perspective, only human beings can design. It is very simple for historical materialists -- design is thinking, and only human beings can think. If you disagree with this, you have to move the discussion to philosophy. The advent of computing machines has brought some examples that obfuscate the big picture and generate motivations for revision. However, a revision is possible and makes sense only when it is initiated and contemplated at philosophical level.
Second, about your definition of design. It is an excellent definition! However, it is disciplinary. It stems from and fits best in the fields of engineering design. I am glad that you focus our attention on the specifications. In the detailed explanation of this definition I would clarify that these are production specifications as opposed to user needs specifications, which belong to pre-design programming (my favorite area).
At disciplinary level, it is not possible to have a single definition of design, and in particular, a one-sentence definition. Typically, one-sentence definitions can communicate only one aspect of the phenomenon. I don't say this is a deficiency, but emphasize that we are working with only one or a few aspects in such cases. A multi aspect definition can extend in many pages. In effect, this will be a collection of definitions. We don't consider this a definition but a treatise on the nature of design. Such are our conventions. By "we" I mean the research community
On a different note, Bruno Latour's actants would not help in this discussion. Latour is definitely embarking on something big, preparing for a more complex world that might emerge after 50-60 years. His ideas are generated in a deconstructivist philosophical realm and make sense only in that realm. Design is a product of modernity. Design discussions can take place only within modernist boundaries. Beyond these boundaries, we will experience a lot of difficulties, paradoxes, and conundrums. Latour's actant is a concepts for another world that might happen or may not. Who knows. The concept of "actant" allows for integration of humans and machines in a way that is substantially different from the modernist thinking and human-machine systems discourse. There is a lot of work to be done on this concept and the whole ANT. At this time, ANT is just an intellectual exercise with tremendous potential. Currently it poses more problems than solutions. This is normal for philosophy and philosophers whose job is to raise problems rather than offer solutions.
Best wishes,
Lubomir
Lubomir Popov, Ph.D., FDRS
Professor, Interior Design Program
American Culture Studies affiliated faculty
Bowling Green State University, Ohio, U.S.A.
-----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: Monday, September 22, 2014 10:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Design as human agency (was Design Facilitation for participatory work)
Ken and Klaus,
I suggest you are very much mistaken going down the path of 'design is only undertaken by humans'.
It makes really problematic design theory across even common areas of design such as graphic design and communication design.
The attraction of the 'design is only undertaken by humans' is that it appears simple, fits with Christian religious attitudes and bolsters ego.
The reality is it falls apart and requires extensive convolutions to integrate with real world designing that humans do.
In other words, it results in unbelievably difficult, inelegant and incompetent design theory.
My guess is you haven't been there yet as design theoreticians and partly, I suspect this may be because you don't commonly work also as commercial designers.
I followed the same path as yourselves until the mid-2000s believing the human agency model of design made good simplifying sense. I can report that my best understanding now is that conceptualising design as human agency act is not only really unhelpful, it also makes humungously difficult theory.
At the simplest the Faustian drive for enforcing the assumption that design should be considered only a human activity results in a need to continuously distinguish between the contribution of the human designer and the contributions of technology in any design situation: an unbelievably difficult task.
This difficulty is not only true now with computer input into designing, it has been true historically since the first designing was undertaken and designs were created.
Problems and contradictions occur at micro, meso and macro levels.
They occur at the micro level of the theorising about design activity and the conscious and subconscious design cognition of individual designers in the moment. In these situations, human agency is tightly intertwined with tool use , including tool-shaped knowledge and information. Some tools effectively intertwine with designer behaviour and conscious and subconscious cognition by their use of their own embodied knowledge that shapes their interactive behaviour and hence the subconscious behaviour and cognition of the human designer. Unpacking the design and 'not-design'
activity in any moment is not only difficult, but potentially impossible, practically, theoretically and philosophically.
The problems and contradictions occur at a meso level in theorising about design activity due to the ways tools, information and objects outside the designer, but involved in the design activity of the designer, influence independently of designer agency. Examples include design examples, the constraints and facilities provided by design tools and design ideas in currency that influence in ways beyond designer agency. A classic example is the automation of font metrics by software. Not only are many designers unable to understand, calculate or design using control of font metrics, many designers have no idea that automated font metric control is continuously polishing their designs to make them different from their own agency (i.e. not-design is design). This presents difficulties in creating design theory about this relationship
At a macro level, the agency of individual designers is shaped by larger scale factors. Examples include the constraint and facilitation of languages, concepts, cultural factors, professional education and culture, mathematical preferences in cultures, religion, governance, history and its manipulation etc. This presents challenges to distinguish between design due to human agency and design due to external factors that shape agency. This is the 'does a pen have agency when it writes?' problem. In this case it is the human designer that is the pen.
One might argue that one can keep all these things separate and maintain some idea of a 'pure' human agency operating in design activity.
The real practical question for design theory is how? It quickly becomes impossible to research and create design theory based on 'design is only a human activity' at anything other than a superficial level and a parochial overly restricted view of design activity.
Stepping back, I suggest it is worth remembering that any theories with potential for infinite complication can describe anything equally completely. Any design theory sufficiently complicated can describe the same as any other. The issue then becomes which theory foundation to choose and why
The main questions are which theory approach does the practical task of providing an extendable body of theory most practically easily, elegantly, insightfully, useably, with the best and most rigorous modes of validation, the best and most useful prediction, and best aligns with the cultural mores of society.
I suggest that using design theory based on 'design as a specification for making and doing something' beats 'design as human agency' hands down on all factors, except that it doesn't bow so much to religious mores that emphasis the individual human ego. In contrast, it aligns well with other religions that go beyond ego.
In conclusion, practically, in terms of theorising about designing (even human designing) defining design in terms of human agency is almost impossible to use, its primary benefit is it aligns well with egoism and some ego-based religions and cultures.
In contrast, starting from a position that defines the activity by its output is straightforward to use and produces easy, elegant, insightful theory that spans all design fields, whilst addressing problems in existing design fields that to date have been unresolved using other design theory foundations.
The key definitions are:
'A design is a specification for making or doing something'
'To design is the activity of creating designs'
'A designer is someone or something that creates designs'
Best wishes,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI Director, Love Services Pty Ltd PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
[log in to unmask]
--
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Tuesday, 23 September 2014 5:49 AM
To: PhD-Design
Subject: Re: Design Facilitation for participatory work
Dear Klaus and Francois,
In my view, Klaus is quite right in his skepticism toward Latour's concept
of agency. Many of his essays are quite slippery on this point. He seems to
say that artifacts possess agency without quite stating the point
explicitly.
The notion of an artifact that has agency raises profound problems. These
are also linked to the concept of "flat ontology," in which all beings seem
to be more or less equal - chairs, chili peppers, and chandeliers are
ontologically equal to galaxies, automobiles, and stones - and all of them
ontologically equal to human beings. Even more interesting, some of the
ontological entities in a flat ontology seem to count both as full entities
and as their component parts, so that all electrons, all atoms, and all
molecules count, even when they are part of another item that is already
accounted for - such as a chili pepper on a planet in a galaxy.
These kinds of issues have appeared in earlier debates on this list and
others. When flat ontology came up a while back, I embarked on a reading
program to learn more about what the notions of flat ontology and assemblies
mean. I'm not quite ready to debate these issues today.
For the moment, I simply join with Klaus to say that there is a difference
between human beings and the world of things. Human beings work as
designers. Agency and intentionality give rise to agency. The human beings
for whom we design also possess agency. Inanimate objects in the world
around us do not.
Agency also implies ethics. We have ethical obligations to other human
beings. We have ethical obligations to other living creatures in the world.
From this, it follows that we have ethical obligations to the living world.
We do not have ethical obligations to a chair, an automobile, or a chili
pepper.
Latour does not seem to discuss the etymology of the word "thing" in
Reassembling the Social (Latour 2005). This discussion appears in an article
on the concept of critique (Latour 2004).
However, Latour does not discuss the etymology of the word "thing" in the
relevant passage (Latour 2004: 232-237). Instead, he refers in an oblique
way to Heidegger's discussion of the word "thing," and then slips on by.
The full etymology of the word "thing" in the Oxford English Dictionary
appears in a post that follows after this, along with usage exemplars and
definitions of the different meanings. (I don't know if the thorn and eth of
the Old English futhark will come through properly on the list. If some
characters are illegible, it means that some letters that appear in the
Nordic languages, Anglo-Saxon, and Old English don't reproduce. We shall
see.)
The etymology of the word "thing" is far more complex than Francois's note
suggests. The notion of a thing as an assembly of human beings making joint
decisions is quite distinct to the notion of a thing or object - a word more
closely related to the words for "case," those issues brought before the
thing (ting) for consideration and judgement.
It is not a judge who decides a case. The members of the thing (ting) decide
a case. The members of a thing (ting) are human beings who gather to vote.
The judge presides over the assembly. The judge does not govern the
decisions or control the outcome of a case except on issues involving legal
procedure and the due process of the law.
It its other meaning, a thing (ting) is a legislative assembly like a
parliament or congress. A speaker, a chairman, a president or some other
such official presides. The chairs and desks do not vote. Only the human
beings elected to represent other human beings vote in the thing (ting).
The notion of according the right to vote to an artifact makes no sense at
all in the etymology of this word.
When a run of automobiles kills people through mechanical malfunction, we do
not hold the automobiles responsible. We blame the manufacturing firm, and
we hold human executives accountable.
As it so often is with conversations among designers, interesting metaphors
provide us with useful ways to explore our ideas about the world. This is
how I view some of Bruno Latour's ideas about assemblies. I'm not prepared
to act as though I believe these metaphors represent the social world for
which we are responsible as designers.
Non-humans do not have "concerns" in the way that human beings or other
living creatures do. They do not share common concerns with human beings. It
is problematic to suggest that we facilitate "material and immaterial
non-humans" to " 'research' and resolve issues of their common concern."
Normally, designers work on for legitimate stakeholders - people that engage
them to solve problems. When a chair, a fork, or a galaxy asks me to
facilitate its needs, I will give the project my attention . if it asks me
nicely.
Best regards,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | She Ji. The Journal of
Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation
with Tongji University Press | Launching in 2015
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and
Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University
Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne
University of Technology ||| Adjunct Professor | School of Creative Arts |
James Cook University | Townsville, Australia ||| Visiting Professor | UTS
Business School | University of Technology Sydney University | Sydney,
Australia
Email [log in to unmask] | Academia
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
Telephone: International +46 480 51514 - In Sweden (0) 480 51514 - iPhone:
International +46 727 003 218 - In Sweden (0) 727 003 218
--
References
Latour, Bruno. 2004. "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of
Fact to Matters of Concern." Critical Inquiry, 30 (Winter 2004), pp.
225-248.
Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to
Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
--
Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
-snip-
. he [Latour] describes the world as networks of agents. this reads good,
but if you go into it, he fails to distinguish between human agency and
physical forces, reducing everything to the latter. to me designers are
agents who develop something that with the help of others can change the
artificial world in which we live. as agents, designers have to argue for
their proposals and are held accountable for the consequences of what they
set in motion. they are not mechanisms responding to forces that surrounds
them. explanations of design in these terms are demeaning.
-snip-
--
Francois Nsenga wrote:
-snip-
On "design facilitation in participatory research", as I did, you'll learn a
lot following Bruno Latour in his return to the etymological concept of the
term "thing" in nordic languages. His "Reassembling the Social" inspired me
the metaphor of a designer (ought to be) acting like a Judge presiding over
an Assembly ("ding") of all (both humans and material and immaterial
non-humans) concerned, 'facilitating' all these to 'research' and resolve
issues of their common concern, whatever this may be at a specific time.
This view tells us clearly who the "designer" ought to be as an
'institutionalized' professional, and what therefore would it be required of
her/him in society ("ding").
-snip-
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