I (nearly) completely agree with Chris Rust on this. Why can't the word
context mean the same as it usually means? Why, when we talk of the context
of some designing, or the context of a design, does icontext need to have a
special meaning?
As Chris says, the word context is easily specialised by adding a well
chosen qualifying word. So we can easily have useful terms, such as the
'designing context' or the 'design context', without needing to redefine the
word context.
The literal (and original) meaning of the word ConText is those parts of a
discourse or text which precede and follow a special pasage or part of the
text and which fix the parts true or intended meaning.
Following John Gero's pointer to Schon's work and Schon's idea of designing
being a kind of discourse, the term 'designing context' takes on quite a
clear and useful meaning which I think shows that it is not the same as the
design situation (a la Schon) since the ConText may involve previous and
subsequent situations.
Tim Smithers
CEIT & Uiversity of Navarra
P.S. So where I disagree with Chris is when he says "context is all there
is." There has to be something else for it to be the context of.
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