Having started this bi-cylical thing I am tempted to push the crank one more turn.

I of course left out the other kind of knowing in my earliest post - that is the sexual one - still contained in the legal term carnal knowledge.

The conversations of poets tend to talk about "stuff" in ways that literary critics do not. This knowledge (about "stuff") is observable in the objects under discussion. Such observation may tend more towards New Criticism where an object (text) is presumed but it is not in denial of your point Klaus about the social construction of knolwedge - there is always one who knows.

Shifting attention to the object, as an object of intention, allows for trans-personal observations - that is, the conversations of poets are enabled as practice-talk.

I am concerned that all the claims of bike riders tend to be assertions in the face of evidence - that is, I may well have ridden the bike, indeed I may even have ridden the bike well, but - and here is the crunch - any such riding is an instance that is self-closing - being done it is undone and needs to be done again. This makes much of art compulsive and addictive - in the case of poets, the done thing exceeds the doer in its own possible knowledge as a social object re-open to more doing (interpretation). Hence the Jewish active prophetic traditions point towards communities of interpretation around particular done things (texts).

I am concerned that much of design doing is like bike riding in that it remains to be done again - such is the agony of the unreflected act. Like adolescent boys, there is much talk pre-post and about coitus which, in itself, is not coitus. Just having sex again and again and again leads to no new knowledge just as just doing design again and again and again leads to no new knowledge.

A good apprenticeship would account for such stuff - see my web sit about THE DESIGN SCANDAL for arguments that follow.

http://www.newcastle.edu.au/department/ma/staff/russell

keith russell
communication
uni of newcastle
OZ

Klaus Krippendorff wrote:

 very nice three questions, tim.

they distinguish precisely what i consider a human-centered approach to knowing from  an object-centered approach to knowing.  from an object-centered perspective, knowledge exist regardless of whether anyone knows it.  from a human-centered perspective there has to be a knower.  knowledge is always embodied, felt, applied, etc. sure, one can observe someone riding the bike and decide that it is ridable for someone.  this does not say whether i, the observer, can do it.

so, we can talk about design without knowing whether we can do it.  but what is it that one is then describing?  certainly not the experiences of designing, nor the mental operations the designer undergoes while doing it.  in fact, not even the knowledge that the designer has acquired in the past to do it.  outside observers cannot describe the knowledge designers use -- unless they talk about that.

so, it is possible for designers to talk about what they know, why they do what they do, and how they act to accomplish what they set out to accomplish.  unfortunately this self description is limited by tacit understanding.  the history of design is full of espoused theories of design by designers that do not match with their theories in use as observed by others.

what is needed is a conversation between the two positions, both acknowledging their human-centeredness.  i think the observer of design who has no first hand experiences of design needs to be especially disqualified to talk of knowing design.

in communication research there is a similar finding.  observers of communication have a hard time figuring out what is going on there whereas participants know quite well what they are saying, why they do what they do, even what the partner/opponent is up to.

klaus

At 04:38 PM 10/10/00 +0200, Tim Smithers wrote:

Dear Chris,

Thanks for your very nice post!  This is, I think,
very relevant, and no digression.  It goes straight
down the line to another way of replying to Rosan's
question about design knowledge, "... how can
design knowledge be known and can it be known?"
[Thu, 28 Sep 2000 21:17:59: Subject: Re: Design
Knowledge ...]

Your question, Chris,

  Q1: "Would a bicycle be rideable if nobody
       ever tried to ride a bicycle?"

suggests the further question

  Q2: "Could we know how to ride a bicycle if
       nobody ever tried to ride one?

which, in turn, suggests we ask

  Q3: "Could you (or I) know how to ride a bicycle
       if we you (or I) never tried to ride one?

I think there is a difference in the kinds of knowing
pointed at by questions Q2 and Q3.  We can have, I
think, a certain kind of knowledge of bicycle riding
from reading about bicycle riding, or talking to
people who can and do ride bicycles, but this is not
the same kind of knowing we would have if we do
the bicycle riding ourselves.

As Glen Johnson suggests, we could substitute other
things for the bicycle riding here, such as, as Glenn
says, skateboarding, skiing, walking, drawing, etc.,
and I think we would still have the same difference in
kinds of knowing.

All these are physical activities, but designing is
mostly thought of as (very largely, if not essentially)
a mental activity.  This I think makes no important
difference, however.  Designing knowledge (or design
knowledge as Rosan originally put it) can be known and
is known by doing designing.

So, we might ask, how can you know how to design
something if you have never done any designing before?
Well, it's like learning to ride a bicycle.  Something
many (if not most) of us have done, and so know.

Furthermore, if the knowing is better if the doing is
better, which I feel is true but cannot say why, then
the better the designing the better is the designing
knowledge.  And the is the better the designing
knowledge the better is the designing.  Which is why
doing something well involves what we call
craftsmanship, and why when Chris said in an earlier
post [Sat, 30 Sep 2000 11:56:26: Crafting - was
Rhetoric - was Design Knowledge]

  "Most of the really effective designers that I have
  known have had a strong element of craftsmanship in
  their make-up and this has been central to their
  approach to designing ..."

we should not be surprised.  The knowing in designing
depends upon, derives from, and gives rise to the
craftsmanship involved in the designing.

So, Rosan, this is just another way of trying to get
to an answer to your question.  It's not THE answer,
but of some use nevertheless, I hope.

Best regards,

Tim Smithers
CEIT, Donostia / San Sebastián

klaus krippendorff
gregory bateson professor for
cybernetics, language, and communication
the annenberg school for communication
university of pennsylvania
3620 walnut street
philadelphia, pa 19104-6220
telephone: 215.898.7051 (office);  215.545.9356 (home)
fax: 215.898.2024 (office);  215.545.9357 (home)
e-mail:  [log in to unmask]                    www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/krippendorff/index.html