Friends,

It is always hard to know whether to enter one of these threads. With respect to the question of concepts in design, the contributions seemed interesting and responsible. I incline toward Klaus Krippendorff’s general view, and I appreciated some of the other posts addressing the specific issue of concepts in design. I did not have much to say until a problematic and factually incorrect post turned the thread from reflective thinking to opinionation. 

The thread began when Lars Albinsson asked about the general concept of the concept. Lars asked for sources on the general concept of the concept, and he wanted to enquire about the concept in design without necessarily focusing on artifacts. In this sense, Klaus’s explanation is quite useful. Klaus narrowed the general to a more specific consideration within design, addressing both aspects of Lars’s query. 

—snip—

To me concepts are cognitive abstractions derived from language. 

There are only two points I wish to make the first I etymological 

The terms is traced back to 1554-60, derived from Latin "conceptum," "something conceived." It's stem is shared with "received," "deceived," and "perceived.” All of them have something to do with formations in the mind. However, the prefix "con" links concepts with togetherness. So conceptions can be said to be collaborative cognition. 

My other comment has to do with Eleanor Rosch's work who studied three kinds of conceptions:  

(1) we use prototypes to define a class of visualizable phenomena by how prototypical they are. For example, in the U.S. the Robbin is close to the prototypical bird. When we see a bird we describe it by how it differs from that prototype by pointing out its untypical qualities, for example, having a red beak, long legs, etc. A penguin is a bird by scientific definitions but it is very far from a typical, in folk conceptions, not a bird.  

Accordingly, we can never see A chair but judge what affords us sitting by its protototypicality.  

(2) adding details to prototype, we qualify chairs by adjectives or uses like baby chair, dining room chairs, or office chairs.  

(3) Abstracting from prototypes are talk of concepts that are no longer visualizable, like furniture.  

Designer who talk of design concepts tend to talk of visualizable but not yet observable phenomena, like guides or models. What links my second point to the first is that con-cepts always emerge among people in interactions, using language to explain what they have in mind doing. Concepts are cannot dispense of cognition but heavily depend on the tropes provided in the language used to talk of them. They are not strictly cognitive phenomena. 

—snip—

So far, so good.

Then — today — Terry Love wrote a problematic and incorrect note on concepts. This note suffers from three flaws. First, it offers an etymology and history of the term “mathematics” that is partly incorrect, leaping from there to the suggestion that all useful concepts require mathematical thinking or are somehow linked to mathematics. Second, the post jumps from flawed etymology to an incomplete description of the medieval university curriculum. Finally, its moves to a sweeping and inaccurate conclusion based on these two flawed claims.

While one might normally ignore this kind of thing, conversations on a discussion dedicated to research requires us dig beneath incorrect and superficial claims.

Terry states that “mathematics” was the Greek word for knowledge. While it is true that the Greek word “mathematics” has an etymology linked to the meanings, “something learned, knowledge, the mathematical sciences,” Hellenistic Greek also added a specific sense to this, the sense meaning “astrology.” 

There are other Greek words for different kinds of knowledge. These include: “episteme,” “techne,” and “phronesis.” Episteme may be roughly translated as a knowledge of theoretical and empirical facts that allow us to describe the world. Techne may roughly be translated as the practical and experiential knowledge of how to do things. Phronesis may roughly be translated as knowing what is right and knowing how to act on what is right.  

These issues are linked the broader questions of knowledge and epistemology. For a deeper look, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers good articles with sources to follow:  

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/episteme-techne/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-how/

Terry argues that mathematical knowledge gave rise to the medieval quadrivium. This is correct, but incomplete with respect to concepts. The quadrivium consisted of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music theory. In a sense, the quadrivium involved the practical arts required by an educated person, or someone who would go on to professional work in theology, medicine or law.

But before the quadrivium, medieval scholars started the trivium. This was the fundamental program in the arts of thinking: grammar, rhetoric, and logic. It is here that scholars — including those who would later become mathematicians or astrologers, learned to think and to develop concepts. It is within the trivium that people learned to develop and to work with categories and taxonomy — fields within grammar and rhetoric, and then to develop these into constructive concepts through rhetoric. Logic taught people how to test concepts.

The trivium and the quadrivium together formed the seven arts (or the seven liberal arts) the preceded the study and practice of philosophy or the study and practice of the professions.

While it is correct that ancient mathematics survived in the quadrivium, it is inaccurate to suggest that the quadrivium taught the development and use of concepts. This began with the trivium.

Those who want a good foundation in issues involving concepts can find an excellent overview in two books edited by Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence. Margolis is a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia whose research examines how concepts allow human beings to represent the world. His work also engages with neuroscience and linguistics to examine how the features of the human mind make conceptual systems possible. Laurence is a professor of philosophy at University of Sheffield who works with the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of cognitive science.

Their two books are an anthology from 1999 titled Concepts, in which scientists and scholars from philosophy, mathematics, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and other fields examine concepts. This includes a useful chapter on categorization by Eleanor Rosch (mentioned in Klaus’s post). The second book is from 2015, with up-to-date contributions by scientists and scholars from a wide variety of the fields that work with concepts. 

--

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Concepts-Core-Readings-Bradford-Book/dp/0262631938

https://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Core-Readings-Eric-Margolis/dp/0262631938

—

https://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Mind-Directions-Study-Concepts/dp/0262028638

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conceptual-Mind-Directions-Study-Concepts/dp/0262028638

—

There are some excellent resources on Margolis’s web site

https://www.margolisphilosophy.com

http://www.stephenlaurence.net

They are working on a new book specifically about mathematics: Think of a Number: The Cognitive Foundations of Number Concepts. As Margolis describes it, “This book offers a theory of how precise number concepts are acquired and explores its implications regarding the nature of mental representation, the role of natural language in thought, our ability to have semantic and epistemic access to abstractions, and the nature of conceptual development.” Several of the articles on Margolis’s web site offer a preview of the ideas they develop in this book.

They also edited a book in 2007 that is especially valuable to designers titled Creations of the Mind: Theories of Artifacts and Their Representation:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0199250987

https://www.amazon.com/Creations-Mind-Theories-Artifacts-Representation/dp/0199250995

While I agree with Terry that some knowledge of mathematics is useful to designers, there is no need to make this argument by starting with incorrect premises and inaccurate historical claims. There is also no point in drawing sweeping conclusions that anchor all conceptualization in mathematics. This simply isn’t the case. Rather, many of the same structures of the human mind that allow us to form concepts also enable us to do mathematics. 

This is a short and approximate way of discussing a subtle set of issues. If we are going to discuss them in depth, it helps to start with reasonably correct premises and it helps to keep the facts accurate.

Happy New Year.  

Ken

Ken Friedman | 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 ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 


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