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Dear Andrew, This is a long, thoughtful post, but there are so many questions entangled one with the next that I cannot see how to answer it without unpacking it. As I wrote, I am working on a couple of projects. I don't have the time to clarify and unpack what you have written. I will answer three main points concerning my response to Philippe. If you have specific questions you'd like me to address on your account - rather than his - disentangle them and ask. I will respond. -- (1) Response to ambiguities in Philippe's post It seems to me I answered Philippe based on what his post seemed to say. There was some ambiguity or confusion in the post as I read it. Some of your comments are possibly right. We'd need the ambiguities clarified to know. (2) Misuse of terms It seems to me important to avoid the loose and general use of such terms as "objectivism," "positivism," and "representationalism." I often see these terms used inappropriately among designers and design research scholars. It begs the question to suggest that humanists in general agree widely on the meaning of these terms. This is not so. If you read in such areas of the humanities as history, intellectual history (or history of ideas), and other fields, you'll see wide ranges of opinion. I did not suggest that I have a correct interpretation of the term where others do not. My critique was subtler, and perhaps harsher. I suggest that much of the time this word is used in design circles, it is used by people who have no interpretation whatsoever of its meaning. It is often used a code word for any philosophical or methodological position to which the speaker objects. On several occasions, I have seen the term positivism used to discredit research positions with which the speaker actually agrees while disagreeing with the researcher or the findings. In these debates, the term positivism is simply used as a way of saying, "I don't like this person," or "I don't like these findings," in a way virtually guaranteed to rouse audience approval. A great many design research students confuse positivism with quantitative research, and since they do not like quantitative research methods, they infer that they oppose positivism. No one is asked anyone to take sides in a war. To ask for clarity and definition of terms is another issue. There is no point raising an issue that has no meaning. Asking for the meaning of a term is not asking the person who uses the term to hold the position that the term represents, nor to take sides in a war. If you look at the DRS debate from 1999, you will see some genuine misstatements of fact concerning terms. At one point, someone wrote that the German word "verstehen" means "theory of action." This is not so. It was necessary to sort this out to make sense of the rest. I offer this as a case in point. If people do not understand what they are writing, the rest is not likely to be helpful. It is possible to clarify the many variant forms of positivism. More than this, it is not necessary to use positivism or objectivism as code words to create opposing camps. Better to designate clearly what it is that one objects to than to use coded and loaded words. Here I will stand by my post. Philippe proposed these terms. I would not have done so. Once he did, I wanted clarity on what he meant. Lacking clarity, I wanted the terms off the field. (3) Reading, erudition, and transparency To participate in dialogue based on ideas and definitions, and to develop ideas anchored in hundreds of years of thinking requires reading. University life is to some degree academic life. When people accept the responsibilities of professorship, of supervising Ph.D. work (the philosophical doctorate, not the professional doctorate), when people sign on to earn the Ph.D., we expect them to become academic intellectuals of some kind. Many designers and design teachers are lively characters and interesting thinkers, but not all. To say they are "always intellectually lively" is not supported by the evidence. Having done massive empirical research on several hundred art and design schools in the 1970s, I assert plainly this is not so. If the culture of art and design schools has changed dramatically since then, one might argue that my evidence is old, but having been connected enough to art and design schools since, I since no major culture shift. There are local pockets of excellence. There is a growing layer of wide development across broad ranges of the field. This layer is seeding the next phase of a culture that has yet to change. You raise the issue of stray academic intellectuals in the context of transparency. I'm not sure what you mean by referring to a stray academic intellectual who might "if unscrupulous, unduly impress people with erudition," but that is precisely the point of clarity. When one is required to define one's terms and locate one's sources, everyone is free to challenge and position. That is transparency. These are also the standards of discourse in a "more exclusively academic field." -- Incidentally, the Berkeley anecdote from Boswell's life of Johnson is only partially mistaken. It was apt in the context, I'm sure, and the same story can be told of numerous Zen masters. Berkeley was both an empiricist and an idealist, and there was occasionally confusion on his position. In this case, one could as well say that Johnson was responding to Boswell's account of Berkeley's position as to Berkeley himself. "After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove that the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it thus'." If you have specific questions of your own, ask. -- Ken Friedman