Dear Ken, Nigel, Mark, Francois, and more
Regarding Ken, I side with Don's comment about your mistake of ascribing human abilities to your obviously beloved dog. Describing what your dog does is one thing, interpreting what you observe in terms of the human cognitive processes that presumably underlying what you observe is quite different. Anthropocentrism is the correct characterization of your interpretations. You know little about your dog's world, or a cat's world, or a bird's world.
I would say the same thing to Nigel. There is no doubt that birds build nests each of which is an adaptation to the circumstances the bird finds itself in regarding the structure of trees, wall openings, etc. and the materials available to it. You compare this to the concept of design thinking and cite someone who equates it with three properties: recursion, representation, and curiosity. I am not sure what is meant here by representation in animal behavior. however, if this indicates design thinking, I would not want to be limited to these qualities.
I have argued before that for designers to distinguish themselves by being able to think as a designer, might be personally satisfactory but is otherwise an easily dismissible self-identification. I have worked in interdisciplinary teams. If designers want to make a contribution, they need to be able to propose something and be able to argue for its beneficial consequences, provide evidence where possible and articulate their visions in ways acceptable to the stakeholders of their designs. Design thinking may be a prerequisite of designers ability to move a project but it cannot be taught as such nor observed except for its consequences.
Marc argues with Latour. One quote told me all: Latour's claim that "technology is society made durable." This claim is widely associated with sociological descriptions of what is. There is a long tradition of that, including of the conception of social actors as being either functional (serving social institutions) or dysfunctional (disrupting social institutions). The criticism of this kind of sociology as serving the status quo of existing institutions and the system of the ruling elites is well established and applies to Latour as well.
Equating social actors with what physical objects do, underlies his conception of actor-networks -- a network of consequences, observable effects, causal or not. In his terms, COVI19 would be an actor who seeks to reproduce itself in a population. Yes, one may be able to trace it to a marketplace in China, to animals, but the origin is unclear and does not matter, even if one finds a culprit. The point is that the virus doesn't know what it is doing, has no motivation other than projected by human beings and cannot be held accountable for what it does. The same is true for knifes, cars, internet platforms, and learning algorithms.
Still to Ken, it is anthropomorphism to assign human abilities to dogs. Lubomir is correct in calling it metaphorical. It is also a mistake to claim certain animals display design thinking. But my interest lies in human beings. It is a mistake in projecting intentions, motivations, and cognitive processes prior to human behavior. You cannot know what goes on in someone's mind unless you ask or find other unmistakable evidence for why people are doing and the terms in which they conceptualize their actions. This is why I consider accountability a critical criterion for establishing agency.
Back to Marc, you say that I am concerned only with actions that happened. Far from so. I mentioned in the same sentence you quoted that justifications concern consequences of actions that could have happened and could affecting someone. C. Wright Mills who introduced the concept of accountability studied board meetings of corporations at which alternative plans for actions were considered. John Shotter later generalized the fact that we always speak with the expectation of being held accountable for what we say. At board meetings the proponents of a plan for action provide justifications which outline how they came to the proposal and who would benefit from its adoption -- all in anticipation of being held accountable for proposed actions. Designers have to consider being held accountable when making drawings, develop presentation, etc.
A brief distinction: accountability means the ability to account for one's actions. Responsibility is assigned to someone by someone in authority. When we ask who is responsible for COVID19 it is our attribution. I doubt that the people who bought meat at the market in Huan are able to account for what we accuse them of.
Also, we tend to do many things without much thinking, without being clear of the alternatives that exist. Being asked to account for why we said or did and with which consequences may make us aware of the alternatives we omitted -- including so-called unanticipated side effects.
The preconception of technology making society stable is the result of sociologists committed to describe what IS -- Latour among others.
I have always argued that design is fundamentally innovative, disrupting older habits and creating technologies that keep society on the move. Just look around you and notice what is happening. Design is the reason why all long-term predictions of technological developments failed. Historically all societies that stabilized the status quo vanished in time. From a macro-perspective Latour and many sociologists who limit themselves to describe their observations are socially counterproductive -- unless their work leads to changes.
Design can be both liberating and oppressive, opening unanticipated opportunities to users of technology and imposing constraints on what is otherwise possible.
A final point against Latour, in my Semantic Turn, I argued that designers are always part of a network of stakeholders in their design and that their success in introducing innovations always depends on enrolling stakeholders into a collaborative network. Stakeholders are actors in their own terms. They have a voice, can hold each other accountable for what they committed themselves to contribute. Such a network is far removed from the network of effects among actants in Latour's terms.
Klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf of Ken Friedman
Sent: Saturday, August 8, 2020 5:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On Characterization of Agency
Dear Luke, Klaus, Nigel, and All,
Four quick notes:
1) Klaus … I understand your position, but I have a different view. If one ascribes agency only to those who can reflect on themselves and state their positions in language, then by definition, your position is correct. It is my view that one can ascribe agency to intelligent beings that can act and make conscious decisions on their own behalf. There is a range of positions on where exactly one sets a boundary that includes or excludes different kinds of creatures. Donna Haraway has written a great deal about these kinds of issues, and I’d also point to the work of Frans de Waal. Non-human primates that create cultures and use tools certainly qualify in my view, even though they do not use language. A number of individual non-human primates who have learned to sign do seem to have a self-reflective sense of self. As I wrote earlier, this is a large discussion that requires more depth than we can afford here.
2) Luke … Thanks for the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INa-oOAexno&feature=youtu.be <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INa-oOAexno&feature=youtu.be>
That’s the Mama who is the title character in Frans de Waal’s book, Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves. You’re right to say that this single tape doesn’t allow us to assess the intelligence or thought styles of non-human primates. But de Waals has written far more. Again, this requires deeper human thought and greater depth that is possible here.
3) Don Norman informs me off-list that my comments on Jacob, our dog, would have seen me failing graduate school in three disciplines, psychology, anthropology, and biology. While this entitles me to some kind of interdisciplinary standing, I’m not sure that it’s an honour.
“Your answer reeks of the sin of anthropomorphism. Telling us what your dog thinks, knows, etc., with zero evidence. Your evidence is that you see your dog behave and you infer from its actions that it is thinking the same thoughts you would think. Well in science that's not evidence. Or as my favorite highly accurate source says (the internet, where else?)
“The Dangers of Anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is defined as the attribution of human characteristics to an animal or object. We do it all the time - when we say our dog is happy we don't truly know what they are feeling we are interpreting it based on what we see as happy body language and what we perceive as a happy.
stimulus.https://www.vettails.com/vettails/2016/3/4/the-dangers-of-anthropomorphism <https://www.vettails.com/vettails/2016/3/4/the-dangers-of-anthropomorphism>
“Shame on you.”
Don said that it is OK to post these comments.
I’m not sure that I was ascribing human characteristics to Jacob when I described his behaviour, but I might have done. When we live with dogs long enough, we may begin to mistakenly believe that we understand their ideas on certain subjects, even without thinking that they think or feel about things as we do.
I described Jacob’s behaviour accurately. Perhaps I was wrong to infer learning capacity and intelligent inference from this behaviour. I can’t imagine that it was wrong to infer that he enjoyed raspberries — there were foods that he tried and never sought again, while he eagerly sought other foods. I certainly might have been wrong about his habit of checking the sun before running down to the raspberry bush: he might have had an entirely different set of ideas or associations that led to this behaviour.
Again, thought is required. As a person who has managed to fail in three different disciplines, I’m not sure that I should do the thinking.
4) Nigel … thank you for the references.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (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/ <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 ||| Visiting Professor | Faculty of Engineering | Lund University ||| Email [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman <https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman> | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn <http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn/>
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