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Dear Richard, yes - I agree about the "truth" problem except that "truth" is mostly, outside of the Platonic tradition, about "troth - the giving and meeeting of a word and an action". Facts as "finished acts" seem to be just as good for most souls - and hence "factory- factor- fashion-confection etc." Such are the knowledges of design? keith russell uni of newcastle OZ >>> Richard Buchanan <[log in to unmask]> 08/14/01 07:44AM >>> Folks, I have found it very interesting to follow the discussion of knowledge and understanding in recent posts. However, the conversation seems to have become a bit frozen around the idea of "knowledge," and this puzzles me. I believe it may be useful to back away a little bit and consider a different point of view on the matter. In short, I think it is useful to avoid becoming entrapped in a single term like knowledge. It is quite gnostic! To me, the idea of knowledge has a vaguely Platonic coloring. It is knowledge as something existing eternally--though always subject to misunderstandings and ambiguities among human beings. In short, it means "truth." While I have high regard for knowledge and truth, I do not believe that many folks reach a level of understanding that is so exalted and pure. More to the point, I always doubt whether I have ever come close to the "truth," much as I try. For this reason, I find it very useful to think about knowledge in slight variations of the term which I learned from a wise man many years ago. I like to explore what is "known" and has been "known" in the present and in different periods of history. Thinking about what is "known" makes us modest and modestly proud, as fits our human nature. I also sometimes reflect on what is "knowable" in the world that I inhabit. Seeking what is "knowable" may seem less exhalted, but it keeps my feet on the ground and attentive to the little twists and turns of experience that I may encounter. It reminds me that my personal experience may be only a glimpse of what is more serious and persistent in the world. Finally, I also think about the "knower" and the limitations of perspective that "knowers" always have. I think about the "terministic screens" that people employ as expressions of personal quests as "knowers." In fact, I am struck by how often the perspective of the "knower" colors what he or she regards as "knowable" or as "known." Indeed, it significantly colors what he or she thinks is "knowledge." For the community of design researchers it may be well to remember Kant's comments on his own efforts to build a tower of knowledge. The story comes late in the Critique of Pure Reason--at the opening of a key section--and I do not recall it completely. But he says that he started out to build a tower to the heavens and discovered, when he was through, that he had only built a small house for himself. Kant's pluralism becomes evident when he looks around and finds many other small houses built by others. It was a village--what we today would call a community of inquiry. While I am not a "Kantian," I think that Kant is a very wise man. It is not bad to talk about knowledge, but it is wise to keep in mind what is known, what is knowable, and the limitations that always attend the knower. I wonder how this could affect our discussions in a positive way? --just some thoughts for our village. Dick Richard Buchanan Carnegie Mellon University