Yes,
David,
The concept of agency is more complex than the example of shooting a gun.
I used this simple example mainly to point out the mistaken metaphor of attributing agency to the bullet (a la animism). Or to claim the shooter had no option (as some cognitivists claim, presenting people like terry does as a mechanism)
My point is that agency is a social phenomenon. It requires an activity. The enactment of choices which while unobservable have to be established by holding the actor accountable for the consequences of their activity, and accepting or rejecting their explanations.
Excuses deny agency
Scapegoating blames someone else for the consequences of the activity
Apologies accepts having enacted choices with untoward consequences
Justifications assume having made choices to be accepted as virtuous or beneficial.
We do many things without thinking like peddling a bike. However, holding a bicyclist accountable for how s*he does it makes the bicyclist aware of the choices s*he had.
Also true, we can surrender agency to an authority, an expert, boss, or such abstractions as Gods. However, to the extent we have that choice, we exhibit agency.
The discussion started by Terry denying the need for designers to have agency claiming that computers can often do better. I'd argue that computers are very good at doing clerical work faster and numerically exceeding human capacitis, like finding a reference, evaluating a finite number of combinations, selling tickets online and aiding designers in numerous ways.
Designers who are unable to create unprecedented possibilities and explore their benefits for communities of stakeholders or users are robots who cannot be held accountable for why they do what they do.
Fact is that designers talk a lot of why their proposal is realizable and of benefit to particular communities. This is also why designs have to be unpredictable at least in detail if not regarding the larger perspectives proposed.
From a larger cultural perspective design makes the infrastructure of society unpredictable and keeps a culture viable in the face of constant challenges from within and from without.
I do not limit design to what individual designers do. Just as agency is a socially negotiated phenomena, so most designs emerge in conversations and agency is mostly distributed over many actors. The lone genius designer is a myth.
Just to coin some challenges
klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of David Sless
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2020 8:29 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On Characterization of Agency - Was 'The Uselessness of Agency in Design Theory'
Luke,
Just a few short comments. I think that Agency is best viewed in a more nuanced way. Agency need not be individual. For example people can make collective decisions. Also there are many situations where we relinquish agency. For example, when visiting a doctor. There are also many natural phenomena that are purely random. For example when the swing of a pendulum is determined by multiple forces. Thus it is not the case, even in in situations when all the starting conditions are known that we can determine the exact outcome. This, of course works in there reverse. We cannot work backwards to starting conditions in all contexts. There are also arguments about the nature of causality and some have argued (Hume) that because B always follows A may no be a demonstration of causality, just that B seems to follow A.
Enough!
David
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