Hi Ken,

Thank you for your messages.

I see things differently. I suggest from your last post and this, you are trying to shoe horn  what I wrote into how YOU see things. 

I'm saying something much simpler and straightforward and nothing to do with engineering or engineering drawings - that was just an allegory. I could have used food or health or art: anything that has the structure of 'real thing', 'representative of real thing', 'characteristics of the representation of the real thing'. 

In this case, the statement claiming to be a definition is the representation, and its validity as a definition is a meta-level property of the characteristics of the representation. This is straightforward analysis stuff.

I was showing that a meta-analysis of the characteristics of the representation offers a way to test,  validate and  identify additional meta-level information about the representation. This is true of anything with these three aspects.

I was also trying to make clear that the analysis I was demonstrating was only about this meta-analysis of the characteristics of the representation to test its validity against some meta-level properties, rather than a discussion about either the real object or the representation itself.

This approach I described  is common and widely used in terms of formal discourse analysis of the sort needed for establishing theory accurately.

Language and the fuzziness of language is not an issue: it is in a different type and level of analysis. It is straightforward to have accurate, precise, unambiguous validated theories about objects of theory involving human language, fuzziness and ambiguous behaviours. In fact many fields of  research are successfully dedicated to this task, e.g. , statistical analysis, complexity theory, ecology, psychology.... 

Design research is not different. It is possible to have sound accurate unambiguous definitions and theories about objects of research that are ambiguous, variable and messy.
 
Language issues are irrelevant to the meta-level analysis I suggested, as is the  issue of technical dictionaries. Of course these issues you raise may be relevant to other aspects of testing whether a definition is valid or accurate or preferred.

First, though, is testing whether a statement that claims to be a definition of something has the structure that is sufficient for it to be a definition of that thing rather than simply a statement or comment about some aspect of it. That testing of structure is *all* my previous post was about.  I suggest the issues you point to are parts of different discussions about definitions.

Put into the language of boats. The design of a boat may involve many aspects of beauty, speed, efficiency, style, carrying capacity, different classes of cabins. I'm asking a different and  simpler but still important  question 'Does it float?'
 
I'm busy with guests this weekend. I'll reply more as soon as I'm clear.

Warm regards,
Terence

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Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, PMACM, MISI
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
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www.loveservices.com.au 
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-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Saturday, 23 January 2016 7:24 PM
To: PhD-Design <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [SPAM] Re: Definitions: testing structure rather than meaning

Dear Terry,

Thinking further on your post on definitions, two issues strike me.

The first is that you seem to be describing a series of airtight definitions that all fit together in a comprehensive system. This is not a single definition. This is a series of definitions that altogether constitute a technical vocabulary. The kind of technical vocabulary you describe should allow people to describe all the different phases, aspects, and attributes of the design process. 

The kind of definition structure you propose would make sense if the rest of the technical vocabulary were present. But there is no technical vocabulary. Your definition is not part of a lexicon. You have been focusing on a single word.

Over the past fifteen years or so, you have seemingly attempted to define one word — the single word “design.” You’ve argued that defining this one word as a noun (“a design,” “the design,” “the designs”) would create a sound theoretical foundation with stable meanings and intellectual depth for the design field. You have not demonstrated how this is going to work. And you haven’t offered definitions for the processes (verbs) that one uses to create “a design,” nor the processes or issues that follow from whatever it is that we do when we act with or act on “designs.” 

To me, defining a single word is a truncated vocabulary. Consider the technical vocabulary of logic. Logic has a wide range of processes. People use an entire series of symbols for a vocabulary of logical operations that permit them to perform different kinds of acts necessary for the consideration and practice of logic. These symbols are defined by a careful technical vocabulary. It would not be possible to do any work in logic if logic simply had one operation defined by the clear and unambiguous term “and.” What makes logic work is a rich range of terms and definitions. For some kinds of logic, logicians change the definitions in the technical vocabulary. In all forms of logic, there is a reasonably large series of operations and definitions.

This leads to the second issue.

You are calling on us to create a comprehensive technical vocabulary, promising us a major step forward in design theory through the use of a series of linked, nested terms that fit together like a stack of engineering specifications or architectural drawings. But you’ve only so far attempted to define one term. Your term is a single noun for something that sits still, “a design,” and you haven’t yet given us all the other terms, nor shown us examples of the consequences that flow from using the new technical vocabulary.

Once again, I’d like to suggest that it is time for you to demonstrate what all this amounts to in a few serious publications. So far, you are waging a decade-long effort on convincing us to use what you believe to be a single, superior usage of a single word — “design.” The promise is that if we adopt your usage, wonderful things will eventuate, launching the design field on a journey of theoretical progress and practical improvement. To me, that’s a bit like the kinds of controversy that arose in the early days of Christianity when monophysites or Nestorians argued for centuries that their theological position would lead to … well, to something.    

In science, mathematics, or technology, people who propose a new technical vocabulary or a method linked with a new series of concepts, they tend to publish it and show people how it works. 

There is great advantage to your proposed clarification of testing structure rather than meaning. It shows that there is no structure at all to the new technical vocabulary you propose, because there is no technical vocabulary. 

There is a great deal of fuzziness and ambiguity to those definitions of design and the design process anchored in common language understandings. There is no clear technical vocabulary. Nevertheless, there are real people doing real work with words as they exist in ordinary language as they struggle to make their processes, meanings, and intentions understood. In doing so, they attempt to get a better grasp on the nature of the design process with respect to human interaction, human understanding, and human undertakings.

To meet the requirements that you have set for a proper structure, it is necessary to create and demonstrate the technical vocabulary that the rest of us lack. Using your structural requirements, the rest of us do indeed lack the structure you demand. We don’t pass the test. But neither do you — the definition of a single word also fails to meet the structural test that you propose.    
  
Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/

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 | Melbourne, Australi

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